ABOUT NADIA LABRIE
For more than 20 years, Nadia Labrie has been a soloist with orchestra and mainly a duettist with duo Similia (flute and guitar) with whom she won a Felix award for the Best Instrumental Album of the Year in 2004 awarded by ADISQ. After 4 albums and numerous international concert tours in more than 20 countries, Nadia pursues her artistic dream by highlighting this magnificent instrument and by making others discover the repertoire for flute.
Read the complete biography
NEW ALBUM - SCHUBERT
A word from Nadia Labrie
ADISQ Felix award winner, Nadia is back with a new album and a Schubert tribute concert, which includes Introduction and Variations on the theme “Trockne Blumen” from La Belle Meunière (originally composed for flute and piano), as well as works written for Arpeggione and voice (lieder). With soft, rich, sensual and colorful flute sounds, Nadia will bring like no other an original coloration and a refreshing take on complex works from Franz Schubert.
I have been thinking about this very personal recording project for years. I have wanted to record Schubert’s most beautiful works ever since I played
Introduction and Variations during my final exams at the Conservatoire over 20 years ago. In the intervening years, I read through the arpeggione
sonata for fun – a work that requires great breath control on flute – without ever having the opportunity to perform it. It remained a dream until the urge to expose listeners to this wonderful flute repertoire became simply too strong to resist.
So I got to work. First, I needed a talented and virtuosic pianist, Introduction and Variations being extremely challenging for both instrumentalists. I immediately thought of Mathieu Gaudet, who is both passionate about Schubert and an old friend from high school with whom I studied at Rimouski Conservatory. I discovered the Die Schöne Müllerin cycle in college, when it was my soundtrack during long nights studying natural sciences. I have always found this music inspiring, so I wanted to perform a flute and piano version of some of my favourites. Schubert’s music is so uplifting, so inspiring, so passionate – it taps into the soul, the voice, the breath of life. I hope it will transport you. Enjoy!
Album release under the Analekta classical music label: March 2018
MUSICAL CRITIC
« L’album recèle des pépites d’or mélodiques . Nadia Labrie est une instrumentiste de haut niveau, imprégnée d’une sensibilité musicale qui fait mouche à tout coup chez l’auditeur. Cet incontournable de votre discothèque n’attend que vos oreilles attentives ! ». “Meilleur Album 2018 (mi-année) du palmarès de ICI Musique”
Ici Musique Classique
« 4 ½*. Si nous avons tous en mémoire le travail que fit le légendaire Jean-Pierre Rampal, notre jeune flûtiste poursuit son œuvre de façon exceptionnelle. elle livre avec sobriété un récital tout en douceur, servi par de chatoyantes tonalités. »
Le Journal de Montréal
« Un rayon de soleil printanier nous parvient tout d’abord, avec joie, avec le très beau disque de la flûtiste Nadia Labrie . Tout le programme est séduisant, rendu de manière exquise… »
Les Arts Zé
« The quiet simplicity and dignity of Gaudet’s solo opening of the first movement is carried forward by Labrie’s velvet sound, exquisite phrasing and moments of rubato, wich convey a brooding feeling of inevitably encroaching doom. She plays the hymn-like second movement with a simplicity and directness which is both heartrending and deeply satisfying. »
The Whole Note
La flûtiste québécoise Nadia Labrie sort son premier album solo, un événement pour celle qui s’est fait d’abord connaître au Québec et à travers le monde grâce au duo qu’elle formait avec sa sœur jumelle, la guitariste Annie Labrie. Le succès du duo Similia a été fulgurant : 500 concerts donnés dans plus de 13 pays, 4 albums enregistrés sous étiquette Analekta et de nombreux prix remportés, dont un Félix pour Meilleur album instrumental de l’année (2004)…
La scena musicale
« Labrie’s flute soaring above Gaudet’s piano with articulate delicacy. The album reaches its pinnacle with the closing work, the Introduction and Variations on « Trockne Blumen ». I very much look forward to what Nadia Labrie explores next in her ongoing « Flute Passion » project. »
Great Dark Wonder
