What better way to highlight five (5) years dedicated to the promotion of quality education than to receive Yannick
Nézet-Séguin and his friends for a moment of unforgettable music?

The Gingerbread Guild, winner of the Excelsior 2005 award (Charity category), organizes its 2nd fund-raising concert, which will take place on Saturday, August 13, 2005, in the Notre-Dame-des-Prairies church, at 7:30 p.m. For this event, the Guild welcomes outstanding musicians: Jennifer Bourdages and Yannick Nézet-Séguin (pianos), Yukari Cousineau (violin), Pierre Tourville (viola) and Michelle Sutton (mezzo-soprano). The honorary president of the concert is Mr. Martin Gaudreault of the Gaudreault Group.

For Dr. Louise Mathieu-Mills, founder president and managing director, such an event is necessarily beneficial to the valorization of quality education for every youngster in Lanaudière.

The profits from the evening will go to ALPHABUS Lanaudière, an out-of-the-ordinary school bus. Converted into a computerized press room and a reference library, ALPHABUS will drive around the roads of Lanaudière in order to reach thousands of children in schools, daycare centers, day camps, youth centers and municipal libraries. These youngsters will take part in the writing of the “Small Slice of Gingerbread” and of the “Teens Slice”, thus learning the rudiments of journalism.

During this evening, The Guild has surprises, along with musical pleasures and enchantments, in store for us.
The tickets will be available at the ADMISSION Network (1-800-361-4595) and the Gingerbread Guild at (450) 886-2542.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, artistic director of the Metropolitan Orchestra of the Greater Montreal since March 2000, is a key figure on the Canadian musical scene and enjoys an enviable reputation outside our borders. As early as 1999, he is chosen by several national and international magazines (among which Mcleans and Le Point) as one of the young Canadians who have started to change the world. Winner of three Opus awards from the Quebec Council of Music, he quickly finds favour with the public. In September 2000, he receives the highly-coveted Virginia-Parker award from the Canadian Council for the Arts.

Born in Montreal in 1975, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, at five, studies the piano with Jeanne-d'Arc Lebrun-Lussier. At 13, he is admitted to the Quebec Music Conservatoire in Montreal, in the piano class of Anisia Campos; he also studies writing, chamber music and conducting. At the Conservatoire, he receives five first prizes, among which one with very great distinction in piano, in May 1997.

While continuing his studies at the Conservatoire, Yannick Nézet-Séguin gets trained as a choir conductor at the Princeton (New Jersey) Westminster Choir College, particularly with Joseph Flummerfelt. He also improves his knowledge of ancient music with Hermann Max.

In the summer 1996, he is a trainee wit the Orchestre Mondial des Jeunesses Musicales at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland. Other projects lead him to work with renowned conductors, invited by Carlo Maria Giulini himself, among others.

On top of his work with the Metropolitan Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin is regularly invited to conduct the Symphony Orchestras of Montreal, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Kitchener-Waterloo, Edmonton, Victoria, London, the OFUNAM of Mexico-City, the CBC Vancouver Orchestra, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and Les Violons du Roy. Moreover, he is the artistic director and a cofounder of the vocal and instrumental ensemble La Chapelle de Montréal. As a lyrical conductor, he is invited by L’Opéra de Québec, Opera Ontario, Sarasota Opera (USA) and by L'Opéra de Montréal with which he closely collaborates from 1998 to 2002.

In 2003, Yannick Nézet-Séguin is appointed chief invited conductor by the Victoria Symphony.

In February 2003, he launches, on the Atma classique label, “Nino Rota: La Strada” – his first record made with the Metropolitan Orchestra of the Greater Montreal. This is followed, early in 2004, by Mahler’s 4th Symphony, also recorded with the Metropolitan Orchestra.

Source : http://atmaclassique.com/fr/artistes

The Gingerbread Guild wins the EXCELSIOR 2005 award, voted by the audience at the Gala of the Chamber of Commerce of the Greater Joliette, on Saturday April 30 2005.

February 6th 2005, bright and beautiful, a cloudless sky and unseasonably warm. So what, may you ask, were all those athletes of various shapes and sizes doing in the Gymnasium on Peel St at 10.00 am on a Sunday morning (even if it is the nicest gymnasium in Montréal) ?

Yes, you guessed it, they were there to compete in the Guild’s second Indoor Rowing Challenge for Child Literacy and raise money for the ALPHABUS. So the waiting was over, the machines (all brand new) were in place and the Guild’s team of volunteers were in position, taking last minute registrations, selling our cookies and, it has to be said, trying with some difficulty to keep their eyes off the better looking athletes (of which there were many).

This year saw both team and individual events and entries from outside of the Montréal area (Ottawa and Kingston), so the competition was expected to be intense and we were not disappointed. In the men’s team competition, for which the prize was a Concept 2 Model D rowing machine generously donated by the manufacturer, the Goodfellow team from Montréal (which contained last year’s individual men’s winner Patrick Goodfellow) beat the Queens University crew from Kingston by .2 of a second over the race distance of 2000 metres! An absolutely extraordinary finish, given that the four members of each team are required to row 2000 metres and it’s the average time that counts. Winning average time was 6 minutes 22.1 seconds. Think about it!

The Queens team demonstrated both grace and maturity in accepting defeat without complaint, a lesson for many of our so-called “professional” athletes. They have vowed to be back next year and we are looking forward to seeing them again.

In the individual events, the Men’s Open 2000 metres was won by Marc-Antoine Desjardins of Montréal in the scintillating time of 6 minutes 13.5 seconds. This needs to be put into perspective. In the British Open Championship which attracted over 2700 contestants in December 2004, Marc-Antoine’s time would have put him second in his age category and in the overall top 50 racers in the company of Olympic rowers and those in training for the world famous Oxford and Cambridge boat race to be held next month on the Thames. Serious stuff! In fact the overall times for the Men’s Open were of a consistently high standard, with no less than 50% of the competitors putting in sub 6 minute 30 second times. Our event certainly attracts quality! Not to be outdone, Audra Vair from Ottawa won the Women’s open event in 7, 14.5, edging out Kristina Roic also from Ottawa who posted a time of 7, 17.3. Both of these athletes are in their very early 20’s, so we expect them to do even better next year on their return visit.

Finally we must mention the performance of Guild member “Fred” Chapron in the recreational 1000 metre race. Her first time on the Concept 2 rower and Fred was second in the women’s section by less than one second! Chapeau Chapron!!!

So a great day, lots of positive “ambiance” and many congratulatory emails since then.

Next year we need more rowers and supporters. We expect to see you then.