Biography
Collectif9 first assembled as a performing ensemble in 2011 and has since earned recognition for its inventive transcriptions and unexpected partnerships that span musical traditions. The nine-piece string group joined the roster of the Alpha label in 2021.
Its personnel comprises Thibault Bertin-Maghit on bass; Chloé Chabanole, John Corban, Yubin Kim, Robert Margaryan and TJ Skinner on violin; Scott Chancey and Xavier Lepage-Brault on viola; and Jérémie Cloutier together with Andrea Stewart on cello. The 2015-2016 season marked a decisive expansion when the ensemble spent the winter holidays in China while also routing performances through Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. That same year the group issued its debut recording, Volksmobiles, a collection devoted to folk-inflected pieces by Brahms, Bartók, Schnittke and André Gagnon plus the first performance of the title composition written for the occasion by Geof Holbrook. Throughout the succeeding two seasons collectif9 appeared in numerous Canadian centers, at the Classical:NEXT gathering in Rotterdam, along the U.S. West Coast and in South Korea.
In 2018 the musicians captured their second album, No Time for Chamber Music, consisting of chamber reductions of Mahler scores. The same year they joined forces with Architek Percussion to devise the interdisciplinary production My Backyard, Somewhere, whose spoken texts were supplied by Kaie Kellough and whose music drew on several composers; the work subsequently traversed Canada and reached the Winnipeg New Music Festival in 2019. Further afield the ensemble has played at La Folle journée de Nantes in France, Shenzhen Concert Hall in China and Sound Unbound inside London’s Barbican Centre. In Mexico it has shared stages with DJ Gabriel Prokofiev, while on home soil it collaborated with the indie band Yes We Mystic at Winnipeg’s Big Fun Festival. Amid the 2020-2021 pandemic restrictions collectif9 turned to filmed presentations, among them Rituaels featuring dancer Stacey Désilier and The Night of the Flying Horses, which wove centuries-old Romani repertoire together with music by Osvaldo Golijov. Upon signing with Alpha the label re-released No Time for Chamber Music, and in December 2021 the group was preparing the film-concert Vagues et ombres—an homage to Debussy and a meditation on water—that introduced a newly commissioned score by Luna Pearl Woolf.
Its personnel comprises Thibault Bertin-Maghit on bass; Chloé Chabanole, John Corban, Yubin Kim, Robert Margaryan and TJ Skinner on violin; Scott Chancey and Xavier Lepage-Brault on viola; and Jérémie Cloutier together with Andrea Stewart on cello. The 2015-2016 season marked a decisive expansion when the ensemble spent the winter holidays in China while also routing performances through Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. That same year the group issued its debut recording, Volksmobiles, a collection devoted to folk-inflected pieces by Brahms, Bartók, Schnittke and André Gagnon plus the first performance of the title composition written for the occasion by Geof Holbrook. Throughout the succeeding two seasons collectif9 appeared in numerous Canadian centers, at the Classical:NEXT gathering in Rotterdam, along the U.S. West Coast and in South Korea.
In 2018 the musicians captured their second album, No Time for Chamber Music, consisting of chamber reductions of Mahler scores. The same year they joined forces with Architek Percussion to devise the interdisciplinary production My Backyard, Somewhere, whose spoken texts were supplied by Kaie Kellough and whose music drew on several composers; the work subsequently traversed Canada and reached the Winnipeg New Music Festival in 2019. Further afield the ensemble has played at La Folle journée de Nantes in France, Shenzhen Concert Hall in China and Sound Unbound inside London’s Barbican Centre. In Mexico it has shared stages with DJ Gabriel Prokofiev, while on home soil it collaborated with the indie band Yes We Mystic at Winnipeg’s Big Fun Festival. Amid the 2020-2021 pandemic restrictions collectif9 turned to filmed presentations, among them Rituaels featuring dancer Stacey Désilier and The Night of the Flying Horses, which wove centuries-old Romani repertoire together with music by Osvaldo Golijov. Upon signing with Alpha the label re-released No Time for Chamber Music, and in December 2021 the group was preparing the film-concert Vagues et ombres—an homage to Debussy and a meditation on water—that introduced a newly commissioned score by Luna Pearl Woolf.
Albums
Singles