Flûte Alors! recorder ensemble to perform at BU on Prairie Debut tour

Recorder ensemble Flûte Alors!  will perform at Brandon University (BU) this month as part of the BU School of Music’s Pro Series.

Flûte Alors! began an extensive tour through nine communities in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta this week under the auspices of Prairie Debut. Their BU performance will take place on Tuesday Jan. 31, beginning at 8 p.m., at the Lorne Watson Recital Hall in the Queen Elizabeth II Music Building.

The recorder ensemble comprised of Vincent Lauzer, Marie-Laurence Primeau, Alexa Raine-Wright and Caroline Tremblay is the only professional recorder quartet in Canada. Based in Montreal, the ensemble is dedicated to pushing the limits of the recorder and expanding the instrument’s repertoire.

Flûte Alors! performs music from the Renaissance and Baroque eras, as well as contemporary, jazz, and pop works. Through their masterful technique and extraordinary musicality, Flûte Alors! presents the recorder as an eloquent instrument capable of expressing the most extreme emotions and the subtlest of nuances.

Their classy yet casual programme Bach’n’Jazz pairs masterpieces by the great Johann Sebastian Bach with popular jazz standards. Featured works include original arrangements of the celebrated Toccata & Fugue in D minor (BWV 538) and Passacaglia & Fugue in G minor (BWV 582) by Bach, and well-loved jazz standards Fly Me to the Moon and Autumn Leaves. Bach’n’Jazz embarks on an eclectic voyage that traverses the ages, offering a bouquet of sonorities and a palette of colours to the delight of every audience.

This tour has been generously supported by The Canada Council for the Arts, Manitoba Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Network, Saskatchewan Arts Board, Organization of Saskatchewan Arts Councils, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Arts Touring Alliance of Alberta and Royal Bank Foundation Emerging Artists Fund.

Prairie Debut 20th Season

The only organization of its kind in western Canada, Prairie Debut is the conduit that links the best Canadian classical and world music artists to over 50 communities which are mostly rural and outside the larger centers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Yukon. Prairie Debut has steadfastly promoted the arts in communities that would otherwise have no opportunity to be enriched by live classical and world music performances of this calibre and financially supporting the tours in order for its viability into these rural areas. In doing so, Prairie Debut contributes to community enrichment, audience growth and emerging artist career development.

Each year, emerging and established artists from across Canada apply to tour under the auspices of Prairie Debut. An independent artistic advisory panel selects the three artists/ensembles who will tour with Prairie Debut the following season. Our organization then offers these selected artists to community presenters across the Prairies and Yukon at a subsidized fee which makes these concerts attainable to concert presenters in all locales in this vast region, from the far north to the most southerly towns and from eastern Manitoba through to western Alberta. Prairie Debut and our artists have traveled the 100,000 km of open prairie roads and by-ways bringing with them instruments as varied as harpsichords, marimbas, bassoons, accordions, and yes, they have carried multi-million dollar violins onto small prop planes in order to reach northern towns. All this travel to reach over 1 million Western Canadians lives throughout our 20 year history. An organization with charitable status, Prairie Debut is based in Manitoba.

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