Description
Louise Bessette has had an exceptional forty-year career, distinguished by the excellence of her performances on stage. Critics have always been effusive in their praise for her. Several composers have written specifically for her. As a soloist, she has performed under the direction of Leonardo García Alarcón (Les Violons du Roy), Charles Bruck (Orchestre symphonique de Québec), Edward Cumming (Belfast Ulster Orchestra), Agnieszka Duczmal (Orchestre de chambre Amadeus, Poznan, Poland), Charles Dutoit and Kent Nagano (Orchestre symphonique de Montréal), Mauricio Kagel (Orchestre philharmonique de Radio-France), Pascal Rophé (Orchestre national de Montpellier, France), Gerard Schwarz (New York Chamber Symphony), Michel Swierczewski (Orchestre symphonique de Aarhus, Denmark), Yuli Turovsky (I Musici de Montréal), Pascal Verrot (Orchestre national de Lyon).
Louise Bessette’s extensive repertoire has earned her numerous invitations to major music events. These include the Festival Présences de Radio-France, the Festival Musica de Strasbourg, the Festival Détours de Babel de Grenoble, the Festival Tivoli in Copenhagen, the Numus Festival in Aarhus, the Huddersfield (G.-B.) Contemporary Music Festival, the Festival International de Lanaudière (Québec), and the Festival International du Domaine Forget (Québec). She has also performed in Warsaw and Mexico during the World Music Days.
In 2007, she was a teacher and guest artist at the 4th Shanghai International Piano Festival. Louise Bessette also has around thirty recordings to her credit. Notable among them are her two albums of Messiaen’s “Les oiseaux” on the Analekta label, which received glowing reviews in Gramophone magazine, and her universally acclaimed performance of “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus” on the ATMA Classique label.
In 2019, Louise Bessette received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Artistic Achievement in Classical Music, the highest distinction awarded in the performing arts field in Canada. In 2016, she was honored at the University of Western Ontario, where she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Music in recognition of her international career as a performer.
As a pianist with an eclectic repertoire, always eager to engage with different art forms, Louise Bessette recorded works by Alkan and Grieg for the cinema in 2009. “Mothers and Daughters,” a film by French director Julie Lopes-Curval featuring Catherine Deneuve and Marie-Josée Croze, premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival (2009) and was subsequently shown in theaters worldwide.
Winning her tenth Opus Prize from the Conseil québécois de la musique in 2021, she was named one of CBC Music’s Top 25 Canadian Pianists in 2015. First Prize winner at the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition (1981), First Prize winner at the International Contemporary Music Competition (Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1986), First Prize winner at the Gaudeamus International Competition (Rotterdam, 1989), Quebec-Flanders Prize (1991), Member of the Order of Canada (2001), Officer of the National Order of Quebec (2005), Ambassador of the Canadian Music Centre (2009), Louise Bessette serves on the jury of international competitions and gives masterclasses in Europe, Canada, and Asia. Since 1996, she has held a piano teaching position at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal.
