PUTNEY — A double-bill of Quebecois and Scottish music comes to Next Stage Arts on May 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Les Poules à Colin is a Montreal-based quintet that, despite the young ages of its members (22 to 27), has been touring Canada, the U.S., Europe, the U.K., Australia, and Africa for more than eight years. Their sound seamlessly blends music drawn from some of Quebec's finest trad musicians with North American influences that range from old-time to jazz.
Les Poules à Colin's adaptations of traditional songs from Quebec, Brittany, or Louisiana speak eloquently to their generation while retaining the beauty of timeless music. Their repertoire is a mix of original and traditional songs, primarily in French but with some English compositions, that showcase their vocal, instrumental, and rhythmic prowess.
With fiddle, guitar, lapsteel, banjo, mandolin, piano, bass, and foot percussion, Sarah Marchand, Béatrix Méthé, Éléonore Pitre, Colin Savoie-Levac, and Marie Savoie-Levac reveal a unique and modern perspective on traditional Québec culture.
Opening band Pipers Den bridges the gaps between traditional and contemporary Scottish, folk, and world music. Hazen Metro, Dan Houghton, and Tristan Henderson are a midnight-meeting of three composers and multi-instrumentalists, singing and playing highland bagpipes, Scottish border pipes, small pipes, flute, whistles, guitars, bouzouki, mandolin, jaw harp, bodhran and foot percussion.
Houghton has toured and taught extensively throughout Britain, Europe, Ireland, America, Asia, and the Antipodes, and also performs with Scottish power-trad band Cantrip, the salsa fusion band Salsa Celtica, and the Celtic rock band Prydein.