Émilie Girard-Charest is a cellist, a composer and an improviser. As a chamber musician, a soloist and with different ensembles, she dedicates herself to new music.
As a performer, she took part in more than sixty premieres and worked with many composers, including Malcolm Goldstein, Maxime McKinley, Brice Catherin, Cecilia Arditto, Marc Sabat, Graciela Paraskevaídis, Enno Poppe and Jorge Diego Vazquez. Her pieces have been played by several ensembles, namely Novarumori, Qhirqhiña, Quasar, Continuum, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Molinari Quartet and by the members of No hay banda.
She has recorded several albums, namely Enthousiasme viscéral (in duet with Sergio Castrillón, 2019, Mikroclimat), Uncanny Valley (in duet with Marc Vilanova, 2017, audiotalaia) Émilie préfère le chant (2016, Ambiances Magnétiques), Race with time (in duet with Mart Soo, 2016, Improtest Records), Avec (2016, Kohlenstoff Records) and Musica in camera (Quatuor d’occasion, 2014, &records).
Émilie has played at numerous festivals in Québec (Festival de musique actuelle de Victoriaville, OFF Festival de Jazz, Festival de Jazz de Montréal, Festival de Jazz de Québec, Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques), in the United States (Avant-Music Festival, New York), in Belgium (Ars Musica), in Austria (Klangspuren Schwaz and Impuls), in Germany (Darmstadt Ferienkurse for Neue Musik and Donaueschingen Musiktage), in Chile (Encuentro Internacional de Compositores), in Argentina (Muchas Músicas and Sonido Presente), in Estonia (Autumn Festival), in Finland (MuTe Fest), in Spain (Mixtur) and in Macedonia (Macedonian Music Days). She also played concerts in France, in Russia, in San Marino and in Uruguay.
In addition to that, she took part in various theatre, dance and performance art productions, such as Rhinocéros by Eugène Ionesco (Troupe Éponyme directed by Jocelyn Sioui), Couloir et Chambres by Philippe Minyana and La fête à Jean by Pierre-Luc Lasalle (Théâtre L’Instant, directed by André-Marie Coudou), ADN by Dennis Kelly (Conservatoire d’Art Dramatique de Montréal, directed by Sylvain Bélanger), the Physical Theater Choir Project (Vicki Tansey), The Sticks (Andrew Tay) and Le frottement du monde (Sarah Bronsard).
Émilie holds a degree in cello (Denis Brott) and in composition (Michel Gonneville) from the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal and a CoPeCo Master (Contemporary Performance and Composition) from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. She is now enrolled as a doctorate student at the Conservatoire National Supérieur Musique et Danse de Lyon under the supervision of Philippe Hurel and Laurent Pottier.
She is the recipient of the Bourse de développement de carrière from the Foundation of the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal (2014), the Prix d’Europe de Composition Fernand-Lindsay (2015) and the Robert-Fleming Prize of the Canada Arts Council.
Émilie plays a cello made by Angel Alvarez Verde.
[viii-19]