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Franco-Americans Performers


Boreal Tordu | Choinière | Douce | Hébert | Labbé | Parent | S Poulin | Roy | St. Pierre | Therrien | Vachon | Va-et-Vient

Boréal Tordu

  • There is a new music rising up out of Maine, steeped in tradition with a fresh take on familiar ground. Somewhere between the French and American styles, it touches on the romance, tragedy, passion and lust for life that exemplifies the Franco-American culture...

    Boréal Tordu began when fiddler Steve Muise and singer Robert Sylvain discovered a mutual interest in the music of their shared French-American heritage. Both are sons of native French speaking parents. Both eventually settle in Maine. Both end up finding their roots again through their music. This is a journey of the spirit of our ancestors, The Acadians, the Quebecois, the unique French speaking people of New Brunswick and Northern Maine. More than a revival, this is the reinvention of a culture almost lost to a new generation. The result is a rythmically unstoppable, lyrically fantastic blend of Acadian folk, Cajun swing, maritime ballads, crooked fiddle tunes and foot-stomping French dance music. For their latest schedule, check out their website.
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    • Website - http://www.borealtordu.com/
    • Biography - See website
    • iTunes Music Store - For our CDs

Michèle Choinière

  • Choinière was born into a musical Franco-American family in Northern Vermont, and from an early age performed traditional Franco-American music with her father Fabio, an accomplished harmonica player. In 1995, she began writing and composing her own songs and has performed to audiences throughout New England, Quebec and France. Her lyrics and music focus on nature, romance and social issues connected to being Franco-American. She has been featured on TV5 International's Visions d'Amerique, which was broadcast to francophone nations worldwide, as well as on Vermont Public Television's Rural Delivery and has recorded an archival family collection of Franco-American music with her father.

    Michele is now regularly playing with Montreal-based musicians accordionist Sabin Jacques and pianist Rachel Aucoin (formerly of Domino.) Their music is a blend of traditional Franco-American and Quebec folk songs, original compositions by Michele, and covers of well-known artists (e.g. Edith Piaf).

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Douce

  • Matthew Doucet is a native of South Louisiana, born and raised in Lafayette with strong roots in Cajun music and culture. After moving to Portland, Maine in 2004, he began missing the music from home, so Matthew formed Douce (French for "sweet").

    Teaming up with distant cousin and Acadien-Maineiac singer Robert Sylvain, Douce put together a top-notch rhythm section with local veterans Haakon Kallweit on upright bass and Mark Cousins on drums, with Brad Strause on guitar.

    Through his fiddle and accordion, along with an enduring family legacy of unsurpassed Cajun musicianship, Matthew brings the raw force of the Cajun tradition to Douce. His influence and direction enables Douce to deliver the genuine heart and soul of this powerful music - from wrenching, poignant waltzes to rousing, irresistible stomps and 2-steps.

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    • Email - - Not available
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Donna Hébert

  • Hébert, a Franco-American fiddler, singer/songwriter from Amherst, Massachusetts, teaches French fiddling workshops nationwide on Fiddling in the Groove and performs and records with the Franco-American heritage groups Chanterelle and Groovemama. Her song The Shuttle was featured on the 1999 Smithsonian/Folkways anthology CD "Mademoiselle, voulez-vous danser?" She has performed for over 1200 contradances.

    Donna also teaches In the Groove Workshops for fiddlers, dance musicians and string teachers nationwide. Her collection of fiddle tunes, The Grumbling Old Woman, used widely by dance musicians, features tunes and dances from the New England dancing tradition. She is also the editor of The Muse of Joy and Sorrow, a website resource at with fine art images, stories and poetry about fiddling
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    • Website - http://fiddlingdemystified.com/
    • Biograpgy - See Press Packet on website

Lilianne Labbé

  • Labbé, a Franco American from Ellsworth, Maine, combines a rich repertoire of traditional French, Cajun and French-Canadian songs (including clogging, bones and spoons accompaniment) with a wry and winning stage manner to captivate audiences of all ages. She has performed for the AATF national convention, seventeen chapters of the Alliance Française, Radio France, A Prairie Home Companion, the CBC, Canadian Embassy, the French Consulate, and over 900 colleges and schools in North America and Europe. Workshops focus on the language, history and culture of the Franco-Americans, Québecois, and Acadians, with hands-on demonstrations of clogging, bones and spoons. Labbé has performed with singer/songwriter, guitarist Don Hinkley for 25 years and recently with Donna Hébert, Tom Hodgson, and Sylvain Rodrigue.
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    • Email - Not available

Michael Parent

  • Michael Parent grew up in a bilingual French-Canadian family full of singers and storytellers in Lewiston, Maine. He has performed traditional and original stories, in both English and French, for a wide range of audiences from schools to libraries to theaters and festivals, in the U.S. and beyond since 1977.
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    • Biography
    • iTunes Music Store - On track 3 of this C

Susan Poulin

  • Poulain, a Franco-American actress from Berwick Maine, was recently selected as one of Maine's 10 most intriguing peole by Portland Magazine. Poulin is a Franco-American born in Jackman, ME where she lived until she was eight years old. She grew up in Westbrook. She's a graduate of the University of Southern Maine in Gorham where she studied drama.

    Susan Poulin is a writer and performer whose original comedy has been seen nationally. She was voted the 1996 Contemporary Story Champion at the First Annual Yankee Yarns Contest in Keene, New Hampshire and has twice been selected as a New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Individual Artistic Fellowship Finalist. Susan has been a featured performer in The Mirth Canal and The Mirth of Venus parts of the Women's Performance Festival at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Her essays can be heard monthly on New Hampshire Public Radio.

    Her newest autobiographical play, Franco-Fry or Pardon My French, is receiving notice. She wrote the play and the music with her husband Gordon Carlisle and performs in it.
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    • Website - http://www.poolyle.com/ - Poolyle Productions
    • Susan Poulin is Franco-Fry - Article by Juliana L'Heureux

Don Roy

  • Roy is a Franco-American ace fiddler who, with pianist/step dancer Cindy Roy and bassist Jay Young, perform throughout the Eastern States. He has been called the dean of Franco-American fiddling in Maine. Roy, who also plays guitar, mandolin and banjo, has been playing since age 6. His uncle Norman Mathieu taught him how to play guitar, and he then accompanied another uncle, Lucien Mathieu, who taught him how to play fiddle at 15.

    While growing up in Rockland, he was influenced by fiddlers such as Ben Guillemette, Joe and Gerry Robichaud, and Graham Townsend. The sounds of Quebec, Ireland, Ontario and the Maritime Provinces blend in his style of playing.
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Adèle St. Pierre

  • St. Pierre used to head up the group Jade with Jason Mancine and plays regularly at Le Pape Georges in Quebec City. Along with Josh Anchors, she received a Maine Arts Commission Apprentice Program grant this year to work with Fred Legere to learn his harmonica repetoire and to play the wooden dolls. She is very interested in traditional music as well as writing her own songs in both French and English.
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Lucie Therrien

  • Therrien, a native of Vermont and brought up in the province of Québec, is a nationally & internationally acclaimed recording & video performer, certified teacher, composer, linguist, filmaker, historian & speaker. She has performed across the US, Quebec and France, and has participated in cultural exchanges in No.Africa, Vietnam & Martinique. As a widely published Franco-American artist, she has to her credit numerous videos, recordings, a song book and two research books.

    Therrien has a variety of musical programs suitable for concerts halls, universities, festivals, cultural events, schools, libraries, conferences, government agencies, art galleries, soirées, & senior activities. She delights audiences of all ages with a warm and lively rapport, whether in an intimate setting, a large concert hall/auditorium, or an outdoor festival.
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    • Website - http://www.LucieT.com
    • Biography - See website

Josée Vachon

  • Vachon was born in Quebec and raised in Maine. She debuted her career in 1980 while a student at the University of Maine in Orono, quickly winning over audiences across New England, Canada and France. With a warmth, charm and devotion to her language and heritage, Josée shares traditional and popular French folk songs as well as originals she composed to represent her Franco-American culture. She has 11 solo recordings, plus two more with the female trio, Chanterelle. For 11 years she also hosted "Bonjour!", the most widely seen French-language television program produced in the U.S., which aired on Maine Public Television and various cable stations across the U.S. and Canada.

    Awards include the 1999 National Culture Through the Arts Award from NY for her work in schools; the Key to the City of Woonsocket, RI and proclamation by the mayor for her contributions to Franco-American culture; and American Traditions Training and Touring Project, NEA funded.

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    • Website - http://www.joseevachon.com/
    • Biography - See website

Va-et-Vient

  • From 16th century French ballads to kickin' Cajun tunes to the driving podorhythmie (foot rhythms) of Quebecois folk music this group's got it all. The two songbirds up front are Suzanne Germain and Carol Reed who will soooooth you with passionate French vocal harmonies ( they don't call it a romance language for nothing ).

    Bringing up the instrumentals are the boys; Michael Corn and George Dunne filling up those musical spaces with some fine guitar, mandolin, dobro, flute and diatonic accordions. They have been on scene in New England for two years and are currently working on their first CD with plans for a mid 07 release. They have a growing fan club in their native Vermont which has also extended into Québec since their Canadian debut performance last April.
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    • Email - (Suzanne Germain)
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Last updated: July 26, 2014