Circus
In 1996 I was going to take part in one of the most significant experiences of my career. Cirque Éloize invites me to participate in the creation of its show Exentricus. The involvement as a guitarist, arranger and co-composer has certainly left its mark. During 3 years of touring in the 3 Americas, in Europe and several other countries in the world, the experience will give me the definitive impetus for composition and musical creation.
Circus, the album that I present here is one of the fruits.
In the early 2000s I was back from this wonderful adventure.
Being still impregnated by this creative universe, I had initiated the draft of a series of musical pieces. Today in 2023 I present to you these 6 completed compositions. More than 20 years separate the creation from the realization of this project.
Let your imagination fly!
Interludes
During my childhood, my dear Uncle Gilles owned hundreds of records that I could listen to at my leisure. Chet Atkins and Joe Pass, two famous guitar virtuosos, fell into my ear. I liked this idea that a single guitarist could manage to reproduce on his own the arrangement of an orchestra. I dreamed of one day being able to do the same...
The concept began to take shape in 1984 at the Casault Pavilion at Laval University in Ste-Foy as part of my college studies in classical guitar where I discovered jazz at the same time.
At the end of 1999 Brazilian music came to me, I met Leila Marim, a Brazilian singer. For 3 years I will immerse myself in this fascinating musical universe. Among other things, we perform at the famous Bobars as part of Brazilian Sundays event. An album inspired by Brazilian music will emerge.
In 2003 I set sail for a contract on a cruise ship. It is in this context that I invest a lot of my free time putting together arrangements for solo guitar of American standard pieces, samba and South American music. The album Azimut Sud is one of the fruits of this time spent in the Caribbean Sea.
Interludes, the mini-album that I present here includes a chorro and two pieces of jazz standards that illustrate this approach. I intend to continue to present the other unpublished fruits of this adventure in other albums to come.
9000 Ans
Lyrics translation to english
Nine thousand years,
Nine thousand years, during nine thousand years,
A treasure of forest, wildlife and happy people
Intelligence at the service of nature, Nine thousand years of gratitude and lucidity
Beautiful children, beautiful families
Beautiful spiritual languages.
One hundred years of destruction is enough
Disappeared thousand-year-old landscapes
Clearcutting sacred forests
Child thieves carrying the cross
Decadence merchants
Peddlers of massacres and diseases
Prison builders
The broken beauty
Everything was beautiful, the indigenous and nature
It was perfect like heaven
Virus and disease free
Progress has turned into disaster
I love you even if I have not known you
Inspiration for this piece's project stems primarily from my curiosity and interest in history in general. From the point of view of my generation, (I was born in 1966) what I learned from the history of New France to present-day Quebec was a void of knowledge and a total misunderstanding of the context of indigenous peoples.
Since then, I have educated myself on the subject of North American history. This reappropriation of the stories of the beginning of colonization, exercised by the French and the colonization of French-Canadian settlers by the British marked me deeply.
"9000 years" is music that had remained in my drawers for several years. I did not see the day when I was going to publish it. Music without words at first, I told myself that one day I was going to finish this piece, without too much conviction.
I knew Serge Bouchard through the radio. His program "Remarkable Forgotten". Subsequently, I became acquainted with his writings. Very recently in his book "Un café avec Marie", I came across a passage in which he reports the words of Richard Kistabish during a videoconference. Serge, from memory, reports his words in this book.
The morning after reading this passage, I woke up thinking of this music lying around in my drawers. In a short space of time, I wrote a text inspired by the memory of the words of Richard Kiskistabish by Serge Bouchard. The following days, I put the text on the music without difficulty.
If committed music exists, it is because we first engage in it ourselves.
I humbly offer you today this approach, a reflection on our links with nature and the history of men in North America.
This critical point of view of bellicose European colonization versus the preservation of the entire lands of the Americas for 9000 years is the heart of my remarks.
Thanks to Richard Kistabish and Serge Bouchard 🙏
Good listening !
Muses
Muses
Mixture of reality and imagination, my Muses are made of it.
Basically they are all people I have known except Béatrice Gauthier, my paternal grandmother. There are those whose life is beginning, those that I have known for a long time, and those who are in another world but who never cease to inhabit my heart.
The pianist Jean-Sébastien Fournier, my friend and longtime collaborator, plays the interpreter of the * Muses.
His great sensitivity and the finesse of his playing add unique and precious value to the compositions.
Thank you Jean-Sébastien for bringing my Muses to life.
1-Isabelle
Mother of all the children around her
Arc digit
Love figure
Protection and love figure
Faithful keeper of memory
Daughter of a missing mother
His strength remains invisible
They walk on the Île d'Orléans, strawberries in their mouths
2-Marie-Berthe
"I loved my life."
Where are you mom?
i see you smile
You sing and play the guitar
I'm small even when i'm big
I bring you these fish that you can cook
We will eat together
Hope has the green color of pines
3-Beatrice
Beauceronne goddess
In a flash at its peak
Go in his wake
children, husband and village
Influential, smiling, singer, pianist,
kind, loved
Eternal mother
Beatified by those who knew her or not
I can only imagine its melody
4-Florence
A flower is never alone
The family remains and remains a point of attachment
to which every human being binds and identifies.
Florence is a baby flower right now.
Each member protects her and brings love to her
new and infinite.
5-Nicole
Lucidity of the gaze
A sensitivity well anchored in the world
Mistress of all canines
Common sense always comes back
to fill
I look at her in love
Available keys
announce the unveiling
infinitely creative and romantic patterns
I keep hearing it
6-Marie Pier
Emotion, beauty, fragility.
Family life.
The beautiful landscapes will change
in memories.
The road and the river merge and weave
heartwarming links.
Thunderstorms only confirm
beliefs of unconditional love.
Love cannot be explained.
He always asserts himself.
7-Colette
Sensitivity secretly contained
Reason seems to dominate
Her heart has no boundaries
but great missions
8-Lorraine
Several lives overlap
In the tumult, miracles follow one another
Life is ceaseless
Everything is recast, adjusted
Everything is metamorphosed
Despite the words said
The gestures are obvious
of sincerity
9-Charlotte
When the music manages to transport us
inside of ourselves,
The film of our imagination then emerges.
Sound atmospheres and evocative harmonies
a world before we were born, the time when we were immersed in maternal waters.
When time is just a state of being,
moved by the beauty of the interior and exterior immensity at the same time.
Rhythmic pattern that repeats indefinitely like
a constituent molecule at all.
Eric Bernard
text
Lagunak
Euskaraz:
Eric Bernard musikaria
Montreal (Kanada)
Lagunak diska
Lagun euskal hitzetik dator, frantsesez “ami” esan nahi du eta hitz honen bidez sortzen dira lagundu, “aider” eta laguntza, “aide”.
Nicole, nire maitearekin, Euskal Herrian egonaldi bat egiteko zortea izan nuen 2017an. Bere lagun horien etxean bizitzeko aukera izan genuen, artzain familia batean, non bera bizitzen egon baitzen 2001-2002 urteetan Antropologiako bere ikasketen barruan.
Euskaldunekin egote honek sakonki hunkituta utzi ninduen, hainbesteraino non beren hizkuntza ikasi baitut. Hizkuntza hau da bere ingurune naturalean Mendebaldeko Europan oraindik bizirik dagoen hizkuntzarik zaharrena. Album honek adiskidetasunari omenaldi bat izan nahi du, alaitasunari, elkar maite duten lagunen arteko hurbiltasun beroari, besterik gabe.
Itzulpena: Iñaki Zubeldia Otegi
English:
From the Basque word "lagun" which means "friend" and with which we form the words lagundu, "help"(verb)and laguntza, "help".(noun).
With Nicole, my sweetheart, I had the chance to stay in the Basque Country in 2017. We lived with her lagunak (friends), a family of shepherds where she had resided in 2001-2002 as part of her studies in anthropology.
My meeting with the Basques deeply marked me, to the point where I learned their language! This language which is the oldest Western European language still alive in its natural environment. This album is intended as a tribute to friendship, joy, the warm proximity of sharing between friends who simply love each other.
This album is intended as a tribute to friendship, joy, the warm proximity of sharing between friends, who simply love each other.
Youtubehttps://show.co/VTLx3Jv
Eleanor Rigby
Single
"Ah, look at all the lonely people": Eleanor Rigby, by Serina Jung and Eric Bernard
To add something to a Beatles classic, sometimes the best path is through subtraction: For example, listen to this starkly beautiful rendition of Eleanor Rigby. This fresh arrangement by renowned guitarist Eric Bernard strips away the original, lush double string quartet and treats listeners to a version that places greater emphasis on the heartache of arguably the greatest song about loneliness ever written. The warm intensity of singer-songwriter Serina Jung’s vocals paired with only Eric’s masterful guitar playing makes this duet’s sparse and powerful take on Eleanor Rigby a must for any Beatles fan….. or a wonderful introduction for anyone hearing the song for the very first time.
Florence
A flower is never alone.
The family remains a point of attachment to which each human being relates and identifies.
Florence is currently a flower baby.
Each member protects her and has a new and infinite love for her.
credits
released May 19, 2021
Composition: Eric Bernard
Interprète: Jean-Sébastien Fournier
Matriçage: Richard Adisson/Trillium Mastering
Oeuvre:Eric Bernard
Graphisme: Samuel J. Bernard
Caligraphie: Marie-Pier Théorêt
Charlotte
When the music succeeds in moving us inside ourselves, the film of our imagination emerges. Sounds, atmospheres and harmonies evoking a world from before birth, a time when we were immersed in our mothers' water.
When time is no more than a state of being, moved by the beauty of the interior and exterior immensity at the same time.
Rhythmic pattern that repeats endlessly like a constituent molecule of the whole.
Piano, basse et lap steel : Eric Bernard
Mastering : Richard Adison/Trillium Mastering
Oeuvre : Eric Bernard
Graphisme : Samuel J. Bernard
Caligraphie : Marie-Pier Théoret
MesTisSages
MesTisSages was created through encounters and influences, where energy and warmth merge humanity in what is most beautiful: the diversity and its potential of MesTisSages, in all the senses suggested by the spelling:
Métissages refers to the tangible aspect of the foundations of the work: the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East ... the travels and the effects of globalization, the experience of otherness embodied and recreated by the composer in the music, this eternal moment when the past and the future merge into a present deeply rooted in being. The roots of the composer and those of the Other merge through difference and similarities, anchored in time, musical structures, rhythms and sounds ...
Mes Tissages brings us back to the emotional fabric of creation, to the complex entanglement of the composer's intuitions, to the fibers and vibrations that make up his experience, sewn over the amalgamations of styles, eras, spaces and places. in contemporary arrangements that are meant to reflect the worlds in which we live: multiculturalization of the West; Westernization of the Orient ... from the local to the global, including the international, the sidereal ... the Ideal ...
Mes Tis Sages addresses the intellectual level of creation and lets hear the voices of masters, muses and other elves of creation whose influences are manifested peacefully in a place where the words of men have no place, where speeches are absent: we don't need them because the music proves that fusion is possible ...
"I do not want my house to be walled up on all sides, nor my windows blocked, but for the breeze that the cultures of all countries bring to me to circulate freely."
Gandhi
Musicians:
Eric Bernard: guitars, electric bass, drums, percussions, recorder, keyboards, mandolin, vocals
Marie-Neige Lavigne: violin
Jean-Félix Mailloux: double bass
Pierre Tanguay: tablas (Chanti Paz), bass drum, additional cymbals (Azur), percussions (Tangorama)
Luzio Altobelli: accordion
Virgo: voice (IndiAmerica)
Eric Gosselin: drums (Chanti Paz)
Other:
Compositions and arrangements: Eric Bernard
Production: Eric Bernard,
Artistic Director and executive producer: Nicole Lefebvre
Director: Eric Bernard
Mixing Plus plus and mastering: Stéphane Grimm
Graphic design and conception: Léon Leclerc
Design, photos and texts cover and booklet: Nicole Lefebvre
Recording: Studio Guitare Verte
MesTisSages is the current temporal anchor of what I was, I am and will be with others. Also, I would first like to thank the musicians whose contribution to this album makes it a meeting place where musicians unite their visions of a world still in the making. Thank you...
Marie-Neige Lavigne, for your fluidity, your great sensitivity and the serious joy of your violins with soft eyes ...
Jean-Félix Mailloux, for your friendliness, your exemplary self-assurance and the creative ingenuity of your double bass with a serene belly ...
Pierre Tanguay, for your charming grace, your wisdom, your great spontaneity and the learned naivety of your mischievous percussions ...
Luzio Altobelli, for the warmth of Italy flowing through your veins, your generous availability, your easy smile and the infallibly rich gust of wind of your accordion ...
Virgo, our free electron, for your way of embracing life, your blind trust which has often opened my eyes to my own worth and for the generous friendship of your unique voice ...
Éric Gosselin, for the comforting humanity of your unwavering welcome and the inventive solidity of your drums ....
Thanks also to
Stephane Grimm, for your work as a goldsmith, an alchemist of textures, coordinator of sound tensions more more ...
Hany Khoriaty, for your overflowing and contagious optimism, your unwavering positivism, your time, your energies and your precious and generous advice ...
Niguana, whom I affectionately call that, for your inspiration and the courage you have given me since the start of this project: Nicole, I will always be your Troubadour.
Samuel and Philippe, my dear sons, to dream and animate the rock star in me, but above all for the unconditional love you give to your "papa-pas-comme-les-autres-papas" ...
Angèle Jacques, our Angel of the family, for being the mother of my children, and for your laughter which soothes our worries ... the only beautician I know who has never lost face!
Yvon Potvin, the one who started it all: guardian of fire, gift of creation, president of voluntary simplicity elected by cosmic suffrage by humanity! Thank you Yvon for believing in me and for pushing me to compose ...
Léon Leclerc, for the magic wand of your genius look and the dazzling lighting that your creative hand spreads on what it touches ...
Donald Loignon, my dear cousin, for the inspiration you have always been for me and for always being there when I need you ...
My family, especially mom and dad for the gifts of life and music, my brothers, Jean for his presence and his listening, Dany for his support at different times of our life ...
All the friends who encouraged me by your listening and your support without which this album could never have been created!
