Montreal is rightly known for its many beautiful historic buildings, authentic French character, ice hockey, indie-rock bands, bagels, and even its smoked meats—but much less so for its classical guitar scene. Yet, through the years this vital Canadian city has developed some amazing local guitar players and composers, attracted devoted teachers and visiting legends, and nurtured a large and enthusiastic audience with a taste for virtuosos, thus inciting more and more youngsters to pick up the instrument. Classical Guitar asked me to profile a few of the major figures in Montreal’s classical guitar community.
Peter McCutcheon Peter McCutcheon and I chat in his office at the University of Montreal, where we talk about his career and the history of guitar in the city. After studying in the city for six years with Florence Brown in the 1960s, he further pursued his learning at the University with Marie and Martin Prével from ’69 to ’72. “They were among the pioneers of the classical guitar in Montreal, ” he comments.
However, one of the defining moments of his career was his meeting with the great French guitarist and composer Alexandre Lagoya, who was a regular at the Orford Arts Center (OAF), just outside Montreal. “Lagoya was, without a doubt, the most influential figure of the Montreal picture in the ’70s, ” says McCutcheon. Lagoya and Ida Presti—the revered married couple—toured the world giving as many as 2, 000 concerts through the ’60s, before Presti’s death in 1967. The two were prominent proponents of the right-hand technique called attaque à droite, the 90-degree position used by Andrés Segovia and Francisco Tárrega, among many others. Most players here adopted the technique, and in the process, “Montreal became the bastion of the ‘école française, ’” recalls McCutcheon.
C 566, Claude Guibord (canada)
“Lagoya was a great friend of Gilles Lefebvre—director of the OAF and the Jeunesses Musicales Canada Foundation—who had close ties with the Québec Minister of Education. They were greatly responsible for creating a momentum in the community of guitarists, thus encouraging institutions to open up positions for guitar teachers in universities and conservatories around the province.” In 1975, McCutcheon, just back from Paris, where he was crowned “premier prix” at the Conservatoire national supérieur, fit the profile of prospective teachers perfectly and seized the opportunity. He started teaching at McGill University, and eventually accepted a full-time position at the University of Montreal, where he has been teaching students from all around the globe ever since.
For McCutcheon, “The second wave that shook the community of players was the coming of Scottish guitarist David Russell and Cuban player Manuel Barrueco, who made yearly visits to the OAF between 1985 and 1995.” Like most players, McCutcheon was fascinated by those guitarists’ technique, and eventually their influence caused many local players to abandon the attaque à droite to adopt a more natural hand-position. At the Orford Center, “anybody who was serious about the guitar would attend their concerts and try to get a lesson with one of them.”
These days, in addition to teaching at the university, McCutcheon is the president of the Société de Guitare de Montréal, devoted to promoting concerts and master classes in the city. Founded in 1995, the Société, hosted Renaud Côté-Giguère (one of McCutcheon’s many notable protégés) in March, and in April Barrueco returned to Montreal to give a recital and teach a master class.
Guitar Teacher Quebec
Patrick Kearney Another one of the city’s great guitar institutions is the Montreal International Classical Guitar Festival and Competition (better known simply as Guitare Montréal), founded by Patrick Kearney, who is a part-time instructor at Montreal’s Concordia University, which is where I catch up with him. The prestigious competition, won by Korean sensation Bokyung Byun last year, has been a great hub for local guitarists such as Steve Cowan, Rémi Barette, and Jérôme Ducharme, who are among the last decade’s winners.
“This year, marks Montreal’s 375th anniversary, but it is also Guitare Montréal’s 15th edition, and the 350th anniversary of the founding of Lachine [the borough of Montreal where the festival was formerly located; today it is at Concordia University], ” he says. The 2017 festival, which took place in May, featured winners Byun and Ducharrme, as well as Quebecois guitarist Thierry Bégin-Lamontagne, and international players such as Matthew McAllister of Scotland and Italy’s Marko Feri. According to Kearney, the festival’s greatest ongoing challenge is dealing with a relatively small demographic. Montreal is Canada’s second largest city (with a greater metropolitan area of about four million) after Toronto (six million), but the following one is Vancouver, with only two million and five hours away, by plane. For less money and the same time invested, musicians can go to Paris, where roughly 12 million eager French-speaking listeners await. So building up an audience in Montreal is pivotal. Kearney, alongside McCutcheon, has been trying to do just that.
A former student of Rafael Andi and Alberto Ponce at the École normale supérieure de Paris, Kearney had a breakthrough in 1996 after finishing third at the National Guitar Summer Workshop in New Milford, Connecticut. He went on to grab third place as well in the 1998 edition of the Guitar Foundation of America (GFA), just ahead of Iona Gandrabur. He spent last summer playing for European audiences in Holland, France, Scotland, and the Czech Republic. “In Scotland I had the honor of being one of the guest artists and teaching faculty at [Matthew McAllister’s] Isle of Cumbrae Classical Guitar Retreat, ” he notes. “And in the Czech Republic I had the privilege of being included among such artists as the L.A. Guitar Quartet at the 25th Anniversary of the Brno Classical Guitar Festival, directed by the internationally renowned virtuoso Vladislav Blaha.”
Montreal Has Been A Vital Classical Guitar Center For More Than 50 Years
Back home, Kearney can only say great things about Montreal: “Great food, multiculturalism, bilingualism, openness.” Asked if some of his students complain about the notorious winters, he joked about one of his pupils coming to class in slippers even during the coldest weather. (Actually, Montreal has a very well-organized subway system—once on a train, you can access Concordia without ever stepping outside.) Reputed for his interpretation of Carlo Domeniconi’s Koyunbaba, Kearney will soon be releasing a new album titled Novae, featuring Canadian composers such as Harry Stafylakis and Denis Gougeon.
Jérôme Ducharme Ducharme was waiting for me in his classroom at McGill University. “Montreal can arguably compete with any Canadian city and with many international cities for the quality of teaching, ” he says. Compared to the 1970s, when most serious guitarists still felt they had to expatriate in order to become accomplished players, the city now offers many different options to students eager to master the instrument.
Ducharme spent eight years at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, but he argues that “traveling and getting challenged by different teachers is a must. Montreal has a lot of great teachers, yet going abroad when you are young is really the thing to do. I tell my students not to stay too long in the same place. The first years are the ones where the learning curve is the steepest, and the richest. Afterwards, it becomes more of a routine.”
Yamaha Cgx122m Classical Guitar
In 2003, Ducharme started looking at learning opportunities in Europe. After seeing Stephan Schmidt at the Festival de Lanaudière in Joliette, Quebec, where Ducharme is from, he moved to Switzerland because Schmidt was working there. He had been stirred by Schmidt’s interpretation of Bach’s lute works played on a ten-string guitar, but it turned out that Schmidt was also busy running the Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel, so Ducharme ended up splitting his sessions with Oscar Ghiglia, one of Segovia’s most prestigious alumni.
Back in Montreal, he pursued a doctorate with McCutcheon. After scoring third place in the 2004 edition of the GFA, he finished first in 2005, becoming the first Canadian to do so. “I won a set of tuning pegs, ” he says with a laugh, “but mainly the chance to tour North America and record a recital with Naxos featuring works by Hétu, de Falla, and Ginastera, among others.” He performed on a guitar made by René Wilhelmy, one of the most praised luthiers in the area, whom I only recently realized lives a block away from my house in the Villeray quarter of Montreal. You can also hear and see Ducharme on a 2005 Mel Bay DVD, which features a pair of works of Montreal composer Maxime McKinley, among other works. At McGill these days, Ducharme has a dozen students from Canada, South Korea, France, and the U.S.
Steve Cowan Steve Cowan, one of Ducharme’s students, is definitely a musician to watch. I Skyped him while he was on tour in Aberdeen, Scotland, and I realized we had actually played together on a piece by Tim Brady for 20 electric guitars last year at the Sound Symposium in St. John’s, Newfoundland, where Cowan is originally from. (My guess is I was too busy following the conductor to notice him.) Impressively, Cowan had managed to book a solo guitar tour that also took him to Munich, Paris, Copenhagen, and a few cities in Norway and the
Classical Guitar Luthiers
Back home, Kearney can only say great things about Montreal: “Great food, multiculturalism, bilingualism, openness.” Asked if some of his students complain about the notorious winters, he joked about one of his pupils coming to class in slippers even during the coldest weather. (Actually, Montreal has a very well-organized subway system—once on a train, you can access Concordia without ever stepping outside.) Reputed for his interpretation of Carlo Domeniconi’s Koyunbaba, Kearney will soon be releasing a new album titled Novae, featuring Canadian composers such as Harry Stafylakis and Denis Gougeon.
Jérôme Ducharme Ducharme was waiting for me in his classroom at McGill University. “Montreal can arguably compete with any Canadian city and with many international cities for the quality of teaching, ” he says. Compared to the 1970s, when most serious guitarists still felt they had to expatriate in order to become accomplished players, the city now offers many different options to students eager to master the instrument.
Ducharme spent eight years at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, but he argues that “traveling and getting challenged by different teachers is a must. Montreal has a lot of great teachers, yet going abroad when you are young is really the thing to do. I tell my students not to stay too long in the same place. The first years are the ones where the learning curve is the steepest, and the richest. Afterwards, it becomes more of a routine.”
Yamaha Cgx122m Classical Guitar
In 2003, Ducharme started looking at learning opportunities in Europe. After seeing Stephan Schmidt at the Festival de Lanaudière in Joliette, Quebec, where Ducharme is from, he moved to Switzerland because Schmidt was working there. He had been stirred by Schmidt’s interpretation of Bach’s lute works played on a ten-string guitar, but it turned out that Schmidt was also busy running the Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel, so Ducharme ended up splitting his sessions with Oscar Ghiglia, one of Segovia’s most prestigious alumni.
Back in Montreal, he pursued a doctorate with McCutcheon. After scoring third place in the 2004 edition of the GFA, he finished first in 2005, becoming the first Canadian to do so. “I won a set of tuning pegs, ” he says with a laugh, “but mainly the chance to tour North America and record a recital with Naxos featuring works by Hétu, de Falla, and Ginastera, among others.” He performed on a guitar made by René Wilhelmy, one of the most praised luthiers in the area, whom I only recently realized lives a block away from my house in the Villeray quarter of Montreal. You can also hear and see Ducharme on a 2005 Mel Bay DVD, which features a pair of works of Montreal composer Maxime McKinley, among other works. At McGill these days, Ducharme has a dozen students from Canada, South Korea, France, and the U.S.
Steve Cowan Steve Cowan, one of Ducharme’s students, is definitely a musician to watch. I Skyped him while he was on tour in Aberdeen, Scotland, and I realized we had actually played together on a piece by Tim Brady for 20 electric guitars last year at the Sound Symposium in St. John’s, Newfoundland, where Cowan is originally from. (My guess is I was too busy following the conductor to notice him.) Impressively, Cowan had managed to book a solo guitar tour that also took him to Munich, Paris, Copenhagen, and a few cities in Norway and the
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