Recognized by his peers as “one of Canada’s leading trumpet and cornet players” (the U.S.-based International Trumpet Guild), Frédéric Demers is much in demand as a soloist with a variety of musical ensembles, principally since the release in 2008 of his solo disc Carnaval et Concertos. His accomplishments include two concertos premiered in 2013, one of them for six trumpets, one soloist and orchestra, the other for cornet and orchestra.
As a freelancer, Frédéric Demers has played with almost all the symphony orchestras in Québec, including the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Orchestre Métropolitain and the Orchestre symphonique de Sherbrooke. In 2006 he did a six-concert tour in Germany on natural trumpet for the Netherlands Bach Society baroque orchestra.
Chamber music is a passion for Frédéric Demers. In that context he can be discovered in the theatrical concert that he produced himself, 8 trompettes et 1 piano, a concert with staging by Anne Millaire and in which, apart from Mr. Demers’s own work, pianist Jacynthe Riverin turns in a sterling performance. Moreover, he founded the trio Débonnaire, a brass trio dedicated to all styles of classical repertoire. Still as a chamber musician, Mr. Demers partnered with organist Catherine Todorovski to create an organ-trumpet duo. And besides being one of the founding members of the brass quintet Impact, which began life in 1994, in 2007 he joined the dynamic Magnitude6, a sextet consisting of a brass quintet and drums, and devoted to contemporary music.
Always active with the young, Mr. Demers has helped popularize the trumpet across the country. In 2006 he conceived an innovative multimedia solo concert, The trumpet in all its forms, in which he plays seven different types of trumpet. In 2007 the concert was adapted as a coproduction with Jeunesses Musicales of Canada to become The 7 Trumpets of Fred Piston and has been presented more than 450 times before as many as 60,000 youngsters from three to twelve, in a number of Canadian provinces. In 2013, in collaboration with writer-director Mario Boivin, Mr. Demers did a new version for soloist and orchestra entitled Fred Piston Symphonizes with 7 Trumpets. That adaptation has been performed on five occasions, before a total of 4,100 young listeners. During summer 2014, he worked with tuba player Samuel Lalande-Markon on a new children’s concert, TNT — Trompette’N’Tuba.
Frédéric Demers obtained his doctorate with honors in cornet performance from the Université de Montréal. He also earned an Artist Diploma at McGill University as well as a First Prize from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal. He also teaches at the Conservatoi de musique de Val-d’Or since many years.
[ii-15]