For forty years, Montrealer Louise Bessette has been a promise kept. A person can leave the Conservatory as she did in 1980 with five first prizes in her pocket, but then what comes next? Nothing but incredible! Today she is undeniably one of North America’s top pianists. After perfecting her technique in New York with Eugene List, and in Paris with Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen, she went on to soar as a soloist and concert pianist. A top interpreter of Olivier Messiaen’s work – her performance of Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus on the ATMA label in 2000 was universally applauded – she became the Egeria of contemporary music in Quebec. As the interpreter of Gilles Tremblay, José Evangelista, Serge Arcuri and many others, she played their works with a mastery that sets her apart, creating an emotional attachment among her listeners. “Like the master Messiaen, Louise Bessette is above all an ear that finds pleasure in the sensuality of sound,” wrote Le Devoir critic Christophe Huss. In America, Europe, and Asia, audiences felt they were in the presence of great talent. She has played as a soloist under the direction of prestigious conductors, from Kent Nagano of the MSO to Gerard Schwarz with the New York Chamber Symphony, and then on to Lorraine Vaillancourt of the NEM and Walter Boudreau of the SMCQ. Her excellent stage performances have always been singled out, as has the quality of her many recordings as a soloist and in chamber music ensembles. A Louise Bessette record is always an event. In 2021, she won a tenth Prix Opus of the Conseil québécois de la musique. In 2019, she was given the Governor General’s Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award, the highest such honour in Canada. The list is just too long; her career has sparkled with prizes like no other: First Prize at the Concours International de Musique Contemporaine (Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1986), First Prize at the International Gaudeamus Competition for Contemporary Music (Rotterdam, 1989), Prix Québec-Flandre (1991), Member of the Order of Canada (2001), Officer of the National Order of Quebec (2005), Ambassador of Canadian Music, Canadian Music Centre (2009)… Louise Bessette has such natural virtuosity, and a way of interpreting in such detail that she creates, better than others, time for the soul. She does more than play; she makes us see. Here, she makes Rozankovic’s music her own. A soloist, she is never alone. Accompanying her always is her belief that the world can be spoken of in music. After some thirty albums, after Messiaen, Tremblay, Schönberg, Stravinsky, Dompierre, and so many others, here is Louise Bessette with Anthony Rozankovic. She is very much at home with his music.
