Biography

Also available in French

Claude-Marie Landré, Quebec choirmaster, is known to be very dynamic and full of ideas. For more than ten years she has been conducting various choirs. She has a wide field of expertise for having conducted children choirs, women, men and mixed choirs of all ages. She conducted choirs ranging from 20 to 300 members.

She conducts a wide variety of styles, from classical music to jazz, gospel, Broadway, movie soundtrack and cultural african music. She conducted in United States, Great Britain and of course in Montreal.

In addition to her work as a choirmaster for various choirs in Montreal (such as the “Montreal Welsh Male Choir”, the choir “Baobab” and “D’un Commun Accord”), and her career as solo soprano singer, she is finishing a Master in choir conducting at the Université de Sherbrooke with professor Robert Ingari.

Claude-Marie Landré studied singing and choral conducting as part of her Bachelor degree at the Université de Montreal. She is also studying the piano at the Conservatory of Montreal with Alexandra Gorlin-Crenshaw (André Laplante).

While she was still studying for her Bachelor, she created her own choir “L’Ensemble Musical” (around sixty members and a small orchestra) with which she performed a few representations in company of other choirs and orchestras. That way she expanded her experience at directing concerts. During this period, she also studied singing and directing in Great Britain at Durham Cathedral. She studied with renowned conductors such as Geoff Weaver, David Ogden and John Harper. As a solo singer, she also performed in Quebec, United States and Great Britain. She conducted master pieces such as the Fauré’s Requiem, Brahms’ Requiem, “Carmina Burana” from Orff, Mozart’s Requiem, excerpts from Haendel’s Messiah and Dubois’ “Les septs paroles du Christ”.

In 2007, she prepared the choirs for Québec city 400th anniversary (one of the largest choral organisation).
In March 2009, she got invited to conduct the St-Lambert choir to perform excerpts of Carmina Burana.

She accompanied Claude Dubois at the ADISQ gala and Marie-Hélène Thibert at St-Denis theater with the “D’un Commun Accord” choir.

For the past eight years, Claude-Marie Landré has also been teaching music and choir singing at the Michèle Provost Academy to students from eight to fifteen years old.

Her last project, “Le Choeur Liszt”, aims to tutor experimented amateurs singers to bring them to a semi-professionnal level where they will be able to participate to various contests and concerts. It is a chamber choir which performs a capella and accompanied, it is focusing on interpreting excerpts from high standard classical pieces. This choir is also proud to be a window of exposure for local composers. The singers that were selected to be part of this choir are some of the best singers Claude-Marie knows from the various choirs she conducts. Through this project, she is teaching these talented singers and expects great results in the near future.

Moreover, Claude-Marie Landré animates a radio show about movie soundtrack composers. She also sings and conducts at Notre-Dame basilique with organist Pierre Grandmaison. She also worked for two years at St Jean-Baptiste. She has a beautiful career as light soprano singer with two CDs produced.
She obtained grants from Canada Art Council, from PRIM for singing interpretation and composition.
Finally she also composed a fantastic Opera “Le Poison du Vampire” in collaboration with two other composers and she is now preparing a second fantastic opera with a painter as the main character.