ProStudioMasters.com

In the early 19th century, Italian music reigned over the guitar repertoire. Virtuoso works in which melody predominated were strongly influenced by the period’s omnipresent bel canto style. Bel canto, or the art of beautiful singing, has a series of characteristics typically associated with the voice. On Napoli 1810, Pascal Valois attempts to use elements of bel canto to highlight the lyricism of the melodic lines. His approach to these works includes an emphasis on phrasing, bringing out different accents, and using rubato, improvisation, and ornamentation. The end result reveals the splendour of Italian Romantic guitar. Pascal Valois is dedicated to reviving enthusiasm for the guitar scene during the Romantic era. He performs music from the nineteenth-century repertoire by using various period instruments, ornamentation, stylistic practices of the period, as well as improvisation, which was customary in that era. After graduating with honours at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal under Jean Vallières, and receiving the award Pierre J. Jeanniot during his studies at Université du Québec à Montréal with Alvaro Pierri, Valois studied romantic guitar with Hopkinson Smith at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and with David Starobin in New York. He has also received a doctorate in Performance Practice from Université Laval. Recently, he has played in Basel, Paris, Riga, San Francisco, New York, Ottawa, and Toronto. He has been a soloist with many ensembles, among them Rigas’s Ensemble Samsara and Montreal’s Les Idées Heureuses. He has also given master-classes in many institutions, including the Manhattan School of music, the San Francisco Conservatory, and the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal.