VISHTEN
Iowa debut |
There’s an old saying that goes something like,
“Go out and make your mark in the world exploring the new ways, but don’t
turn your back on your roots.” Made up of third-generation Acadians, Vishten
has been doing just that for the past seven years, touring their brand of
new-traditional Acadian music all over the world. Twin sisters Pastelle and
Emmanuelle LeBlanc from Prince Edward Island, Canada, teamed up with Pascal
Miousse and Louis Charles Vigneau from the nearby Magdelene Islands to
create a sound that incorporates elements of the new ways while retaining
and staying true to the essential Acadian spirit of their roots. The sound
is essentially Celtic but with a difference. The songs are French, sung by
each band member, alone or in four-part harmony. The foot percussion drives
the rhythm in a fiddle tune at times, yet restrains itself in the gentler
musical moments. The band members are accomplished multi-instrumentalists
and step-dancers incorporating the fiddle, guitar, accordion, penny-whistle,
banjo, mandolin, piano, jaw-harp and bodhran into performances.
Vishtèn, has become a distinctive and
powerful international voice for traditional music from their part of the
world. Pastelle and Emmanuelle grew up in a household. Their parents opened
their home night after night to local and traveling fiddlers; musical jams
into the wee hours were a regular occurrence. Soon the young sisters were
becoming accomplished step dancers and learning the fundamentals of music on
the piano. All the while they had the opportunity to listen to and
experience the fiddlers and accompanists of their parents’ generation. One
of the best of these was Bertrand Deraspe, a renowned fiddler from the
Magdalen Islands.
It wasn’t long before the sisters began
to jam with other young people in their community and formed a band called
Celtitude, later changing the name to Vishtèn. Pastelle’s early piano
training proved useful in making the transition to accordion and Emmanuelle
soon discovered a flare for playing penny whistle and bodhràn. Their voices
had also matured and the sweetness and smoothness of sibling harmonies was
added to the mix.
Growing up on the Magdalen Islands
fiddler Pascal Miousse was influenced by his father, a guitarist who loved
fiddle music and the socializing that ensued whenever the fiddle came out.
He inspired Pascal to take up the fiddle at the age of five. It wasn’t long
before he was playing for his father’s friends, being awakened at 3 a.m. to
play at the party after the dance, which had suddenly materialized in the
kitchen of his home.
Pascal developed rapidly and soon
broadened his musical scope to include the guitar, mandolin and bass. With a
couple of friends from the Magdalen Islands, he too formed a band and toured
for 10 years, playing mostly rock music with a fiddle tune thrown in once in
a while, lest he not forget his roots.
As that collaboration was ending, a
chance encounter on the street one day with Pastelle caused him to re-enter
the world of traditional music. It seemed that Vishtèn had just lost its
fiddler and was in dire need of a stylistically French fiddler. Of course,
it definitely helped that he also sang and played everything else. He and
his style of play have become a musical anchor of Vishtèn’s sound, giving it
a distinctive voice within the broader Celtic genre.
Ironically, newest member Louis-Charles
Vigneau also grew up on the Magdalen Islands, met the twins for the first
time in Louisiana and became a brief member of the early incarnation of the
band for just six months and then only after an intensive five-year personal
musical journey recently rejoined to complete the evolution of the ensemble.
He too was fortunate to have music in
the home. His mother is the accomplished singer/instrumentalist Carole
Painchaud, who has always had a traditional band of some sort on the go. It
was through her that he first met guitarist Patrice Deraspe (Bertrand
Deraspe’s brother) who inspired in him the desire to seek out the many
possibilities on the guitar as it applies to fiddle music and traditional
songs.
:::
Fri Sep 25 |
5:30 pm
Greene Square Park | Cedar Rapids
Free | Donations welcome
:::
Thanks to the ImpactCR, our promotional partner for this show.
The Landfall Festival of World Music has received support from Rockwell
Collins, the Hotel Motel Fund of the City of Cedar Rapids, the National
Performance Network, the Fidelity Foundation and the National Endowment for
the Arts.
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