L'ENSEMBLE DU CARRE ST-LOUIS and Shen Qi - Erhu(Chinese violin)
Intercultural Concert - Fusion of Far-Eastern and Western musical cultures: ORIENTAL MUSIC (Chinese and Japanese) with a European and North American flavour ; and OCCIDENTAL MUSIC (Classical, Jazz, Pop, Traditional and Original) with a distinctly Oriental flavour
Shen Qi, since emigrating from her native China in 1994, has established herself as one of the foremost performers of Chinese and World Music in Quebec and Canada. She has performed in an impressive number of concerts, festivals and other important events and has produced music for radio, television and films in Canada, the US and China. She has also recorded 5 CDs of her own music. She joined L’Ensemble du Carré St-Louis in the winter of 2006 and has been performing concerts with the group since August of 2007. Shen Qi speaks fluent Mandarin, English and rudimentary French.
L’Ensemble du Carré St-Louis, directed by Robert O’Callaghan, has performed its extensive repertoire of Classical, Jazz, Popular and Traditional Music for the last 25 years, in a multitude of concerts, festivals and other prestigious events in North and South America, including more than 50 municipalities in Quebec and in a dozen European countries, including: a series of annual concerts in Les Jardins des Tuileries in Paris, participation in the Vienna Summer Music Festival as well as the International Festival Bologna Sogna and the Ferrara International Festival in Italy; concerts at the Isaac Fernandez Blanco Museum in Buenos Aires and numerous other events in Argentina and Paraguay sponsored by the Canadian Embassy in Buenos Aires. L’Ensemble du Carré St-Louis was also one of the official musical groups performing at the Canadian Pavilion at the Seville International Exposition in 1992.
l’Ensemble has performed music for radio, on television, has recorded for the cinema and has produced 3 CDs.
All members of L’Ensemble are Canadian citizens presently living in Montreal and originate variously from Quebec, British Columbia, China, Hungary and the United States. Individual members of L’Ensemble du Carré St-Louis can communicate, variously, in a mixture of Mandarin, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian and Czech.
Instrumentation
Erhu (Chinese violin)- Shen Qi; Flute - Robert O'Callaghan; Guitar - Sydney Vrana or Luke Fowlie; Double Bass - Guy Richer; Cello - Vera Rönkös or Iona Corber; Saxophone and Percussion - Adam O'Callaghan
