OUR STORY
Barachois Summer Music is one of the pillars of south-eastern New Brunswick’s artistic environment. Founded 45 years ago, year after year, the event presents classical music concerts of the highest level in the enchanting setting of the Barachois Historic Church, a heritage site erected in 1824. To date, more than 250 concerts have taken place within the walls of this Acadian cultural treasure, in the Viola-Léger hall, allowing the public to discover and appreciate brilliant musicians from here and abroad in a warm atmosphere and incomparable acoustics.
Over the years, thanks to the series, the Barachois Historic Church has been privileged to host musicians of an international calibre such as the Alcan Quartet, the Arthur-LeBlanc Quartet, Stéphane Beaulac, Luc Beauséjour, Daniel Bolshoy, Leslie-Ann Bradley, Dominique Côté, Lorraine Desmarais, Chantal Dionne, Denise Djokic, Marc Djokic, Jonathan Estabrooks, the Hochelaga Trio, David Jalbert, the John Roney Trio, Miriam Khalil, Marianne Lambert, Renée Lapointe, Vincent Lauzer, Suzie LeBlanc, Suzanne Lemieux, Marie-Josée Lord, Roger Lord, Nathalie Paulin, Richard Raymond, the Wanderer Trio, Jasper Wood and Brian Yoon.
Eager to promote emerging talents, the series has also served as a stepping stone for a number of young Acadian and New Brunswick artists, allowing them to experience some of their first performances on a professional stage. Notable names among this group include Christianne Bélanger, Jaeyoung Chong, Terri Croft, Alain and Patrick Gaudet, Carl Philippe Gionet, Julien LeBlanc, Carol Léger, Dion Mazerolle, Lance Ouellette and the Phi brothers.
Barachois Summer Music is now one of Atlantic Canada’s most important musical events. Its concerts have often been recorded and broadcast on Radio-Canada and Espace musique. In 2014, the series received the Event of the Year Éloize in recognition of its 31st and 32nd seasons, Twilight Dreams and A Fresh, Blazing Summer. Emboldened by this success, the event hopes to keep growing and evolving, always striving to nourish the region’s cultural life.
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Pianist, writer, and arts leader Pierre-André Doucet is recognized as a singular voice in Canada’s artistic landscape. Noted for the emotional depth and refined control of his performances, he has appeared as a soloist, chamber musician, and vocal collaborator across North America, Europe, and South Africa, as well as aboard Holland America Line ships as a Lincoln Center Stage artist.
An active artistic curator, he serves as Artistic Director of Barachois Summer Music, in his native New Brunswick, and steered the Frye Festival—Atlantic Canada’s largest literary festival—through a time of transition as Interim Executive Director from 2021 to 2022. In 2023, he was also the artistic director of Une maison traversée at Montréal’s Festival international de littérature. He is currently the coordinator of the McGill-UdeM Piano-Vocal Arts Residency, a unique program which he also ompleted as part of its first cohort (2022-2023).
Winner of the Knigge Piano Competition and the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition (with soprano Alexandra Smither), he has also received prizes at the Prix d’Europe, the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto’s Career Development Award, and the Ibiza International Piano Competition.
A celebrated author, Doucet has published two critically acclaimed books with Prise de parole—Sorta comme si on était déjà là (2012) and Des dick pics sous les étoiles (2020)—and became the first writer to be a three-time finalist in literature at the Jeux de la Francophonie (Beirut 2009, Nice 2013, Kinshasa 2023). His work has also appeared in Ancrages, Art Song Canada Magazine, Impossible Archetypes, Opera Canada, and Voix plurielles.
Doucet holds a Doctorate in Piano Performance from the Université de Montréal and a Graduate Diploma in Collaborative Piano Performance from McGill University. A former resident at the Franz-Schubert-Institut, Music Academy of the West, and Tanglewood Music Center, he has been a guest professor at l’Université de Montréal and is well in demand as an adjudicator across the country. His artistic projects have received support from the Canada Council for the Arts, CALQ, the New Brunswick Arts Board, SSHRC, and FRQSC.