Val-d'Or show

Fantastic evening at a fantastic Festival (Festival classique de l'Abitibi-Témiscamingue - artistic director: Donald Ferland).

There were speeches galore every evening! Donald spoke of course, but we also heard from Raymond Cloutier, Actor & Director of the Conservatoire of Dramatic Art, Montréál, who is Honorary President of the Festival, as well as Marie St-Germain (President of same) & Jean St-Jules, Director of the Conservatoire of Music in Val-d'Or...
This is all taken very seriously; and it shows -the attention to detail is splendid, and the Festival atmosphere compelling...

We were very well looked after at our hotel - Auberge Harricana - Martin, Marie-Annick and their family were terrific (wonderful children), also Mary Lou ran errands for us tirelessly...

Three evening shows and lots of smaller concerts throughout a busy three days up here in Val-d'Or...

There was firstly Les Boréades, a baroque ensemble who have been doing The Beatles in this style for a few years now... amazing...
Then there was Marie-Josée Lord - a phenomenal Opera singer, accompanied beautifully by violin and piano...
All the evening acts share our Canadian agent - L'Agence Station Bleue - a good weekend for them too!

The audience were brimming over with excitement for all the concerts, and it took us a long time to exit the building... more CDs sold... once more - including selling out of cricket ones! One gets the impression from Cricket Canada's site that the francophones aren't quite so hot on this sport, but who knows in the future.... & I see we have beaten India by an innings again... what larks... [We did get a CD to the great Sachin Tendulkar, I do hope he does not take his non-century frustration out on it!]

And a great new idea... all involved were given a painting to take home (and we all fitted our individual ones in our cases) - created by local artist Lee Lovsin... cool!

...and here we are back at Montréal, awaiting our connection, so as to get home... just in time for a lie down, then Spain at the end of the week...