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Biography

The romantic guitar in all its splendour.
— Magazine Guitare Classique

Pascal Valois is dedicated to reviving enthusiasm for the guitar scene during the Romantic era. He performs music from the nineteenth-century repertoire by using various period instruments, ornamentation, stylistic practices of the period, as well as improvisation, which was customary in that era.

After graduating with honours at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal under Jean Vallières, and receiving the award Pierre J. Jeanniot during his studies at Université du Québec à Montréal with Alvaro Pierri, Valois studied romantic guitar with Hopkinson Smith at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and with David Starobin in New York. He has also received a doctorate in Performance Practice from Université Laval. Recently, he has played in Basel, Paris, Riga, San Francisco, New York, Ottawa, and Toronto. He has been a soloist with many ensembles, among them Rigas’s Ensemble Samsara and Montreal’s Les Idées Heureuses. He has also given master-classes in many institutions, including the Manhattan School of music, the San Francisco Conservatory, and the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal.

Pascal Valois has received the most renowned bursaries in Canada for guitar performance (Canada Council for the Arts) as well as Musicology (FQRSC and SSHRC). He has also been awarded scholarships from the Desjardins Foundation, the Wilfrid-Pelletier Foundation, the Laval University Foundation, and the Université du Québec à Montréal Foundation. Pascal Valois recorded for the Centaur Records and Analekta labels.

Pascal Valois is a professor of classical guitar at the Alma College and Conservatoire de Saguenay. His students have won national music competitions and were awarded gold medals in national guitar exams. You can contact him for private lessons: pascalvalois@hotmail.com.

The Québecois Valois is an exceptionally fine soloist who plays with a romantic temperament, coaxing many colors from a small instrument and shaping his phrases with such skill that one hears a whole narrative in his wordless playing. He plays with dimension, passion, and elegance (...).
— Chris Petitt, Seen and Heard International, New York
Pascal is an engaging musician with clear lyric inspiration and a sense of poetry that can bring the logic and expression of the romantic music he plays to perfection.
— Hopkinson Smith
Pascal Valois and his instrument are united in an absolutely masterful and rigorous delivery.
— Journal Le Métropolitain de Toronto
Valois played with grace, elegance, and élan. His phrasing was similarly remarkable, as he imbued each melody with a beautiful vocal quality. It was light, effortless, and full of spirit.
— Giacomo Fiore, Classicalguitar.org

Albums

 
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Concert Program 2023-2024

 
 

galant guitar extravaganza

The new trio formed by Pascal Valois (guitar), Andrea Stewart (cello) and Jacques-André Houle (violin) presents a magnificent program of gallant works featuring guitar. From Boccherini's exhilarating Fandango to Vivaldi's brilliant guitar concerto and unpublished pieces by Monsieur Vidal, the ensemble offers musical gems from gallant Europe on period instruments. Click for concert details + press kit. Click to see a video sample.

 

The GUITAROMANIE concert brings to life the frenzy and wonder of a musical performance where spontaneity is combined with virtuos- ity. It features a set of masterpieces that drew crowds and rocked music salons across Europe. Whether an operatic fantasy by Mauro Giuliani, a sonata by Niccolò Paganini or a theme and variations by Fernando Sor, audiences were fond of new works for guitar. Some- times imbued with clarity and rigour, sometimes strewn with dazzling drama, romantic guitar music always charms, thanks to its richness and diversity. Click for concert details + press kit. Click to see a video sample.

 

A workshop on improvisation, ornementation and the performance practices of romantic guitar. Click for details.