Aleksi Campagne

Last updated

Aleksi Campagne is a Canadian singer-songwriter, who won the Canadian Folk Music Award for French Songwriter of the Year at the 19th Canadian Folk Music Awards in 2024 for his album For the Giving / Sans rien donner. [1]

Contents

Career

For the Giving / Sans rien donner, released in 2023, is a 20-song double album, featuring ten songs in both English and French versions. [2] Although fluently bilingual, he collaborated with his aunt Michelle Campagne to translate the lyrics into French due to the complications inherent in translating song lyrics, which must sometimes be translated thematically rather than literally due to the need to conform to the original song's melody and rhythm. Le Devoir gave the album a favourable review, comparing its blend of folk, jazz and indie pop influences to both Patrick Watson and Half Moon Run. [2]

Aleksi released For the Giving / Sans rien donner on 13 July 2023. [3] That same month, Aleksi was selected as a Mariposa Folk Festival Emerging Artist and performed at the festival. [4] In December 2022, his single "Another Day" was picked by Paul Corby as a Top Single of 2022. [5] In January 2023, Aleksi and his brother Gabriel were invited to perform for a Canadian citizenship ceremony. [6] In March 2023, radio host Tom Coxworth picked Aleksi as one of the Top 5 Favourite acts at the Folk Alliance International Conference. [7] In May 2023, he became the only Canadian finalist in that year's Kerrville Folk Festival’s Grassy Hill New Folk Competition for Emerging Songwriters. [8] On October 12, 2023, an episode about Aleksi’s music aired on the program Path to Creation directed by Igal Hecht. [9]

In 2021, he was featured on the album La Famille Campagne – Noël En Famille. [10] He released a self-titled ep in 2018. [11] He also performs with his mother as both a supporting musician in her band and an opening act. [12]

In 2017, Aleksi performed with the French children’s performance group Tam Ti Delam across Canada alongside artists Geneviève Toupin and Annick Brémault. [13] As a child, Aleksi is credited on three of his aunt Carmen Campagne’s children’s albums, including La Vache En Alaska (1995), Enchantée (1997) and Sur la Ferme de Grand-Père (2012). [14]

Advocacy

According to Billboard Canada, Aleksi was invited to perform for the environmental pressure group Music Declares Emergency for a concert on March 17, 2024 to Honour Neil Young and Joni Mitchell for their “commitments to environmental advocacy and awareness.” [15]

On April 7, 2024, in his acceptance speech at the Canadian Folk Music Awards Aleksi dedicated his CFMA win for his bilingual album to “all those who speak more than one language.” [16] His promotion of multilingualism in Canadian music builds on the activism of his family. His father, Paul Campagne, was a member of the bilingual band Hart Rouge with his sisters Michelle, Annette and Suzanne. [17] [18]

Acting

In 2017, he played a wedding violinist in one episode of the Quebecois TV show Les Pays d'en Haut. [19]

Personal life

The son of folk musicians Connie Kaldor and Paul Campagne, [12] he studied classical and jazz violin in university. [20]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Lights Festival Boréal</span> Annual summer music festival in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Northern Lights Festival Boréal is an annual summer music festival in Sudbury, Ontario. It is one of Canada's oldest continuous music festivals, having been staged every year since 1972 until the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hart-Rouge are a Canadian folk music group, consisting of siblings Paul Campagne, Michelle Campagne, and Suzanne Campagne.

Roy Charles Forbes is a Canadian folk music singer-songwriter, whose music bears heavy influences from classic American genres of acoustic blues and traditional country. Forbes is known for his high soulful voice and percussive guitar playing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carmen Campagne</span> Canadian singer and childrens entertainer

Carmen Campagne was a Canadian singer and children's entertainer. She, along with Connie Kaldor, received a Juno Award at the 1989 Award ceremony in the category Best Children's Album for Lullaby Berceuse. A Fransaskoise from Willow Bunch, Saskatchewan, she was a member of the folk music band Folle Avoine in the 1970s. Her brother Paul Campagne and sisters Suzanne Campagne, Michelle Campagne and Annette Campagne, her bandmates in Folle Avoine, have also continued in music with the folk band Hart-Rouge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Connie Kaldor</span> Canadian folk singer-songwriter

Connie Isabelle Kaldor, is a Canadian folk singer-songwriter. She is the recipient of three Juno awards.

James Jay ("J.") Knutson is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and producer. He is normally credited as simply J. Knutson.

The Kerrville Folk Festival is a music festival with camping, held for nearly three weeks each year, in late spring/early summer, at Quiet Valley Ranch near Kerrville, Texas. The festival draws around 30,000 people. It aims to present established artists and promote new talent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eve Goldberg</span> Singer-songwriter based in Toronto, Canada

Eve Goldberg is a folk musician, singer and songwriter based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Musically, she draws from a number of different traditions and influences such as blues, country, bluegrass, jazz, swing, and contemporary and traditional folk music.

"Morning Dew", also known as "(Walk Me Out in the) Morning Dew", is a contemporary folk song by Canadian singer-songwriter Bonnie Dobson. The lyrics relate a fictional conversation in a post-nuclear holocaust world. Originally recorded as a solo performance, Dobson's vocal is accompanied by her finger-picked acoustic guitar playing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jon Brooks</span> Canadian musician and singer-songwriter

Jon Brooks is a Canadian musician and singer-songwriter best known as a solo performer but more recently as leader of Jon Brooks & The Outskirts of Approval. Brooks’ music may be characterized as literary, allusive, emotionally intense and difficult to categorize, borne as it is from a broad range of influence and musical incarnations. His lyrics attend to, in Brooks’ words, ‘calming those who’ve looked into and seen what is in their hearts and terrifying those who’ve not.’ His albums, often thematic, fixate over love, fear, death, religion, war, post traumatic stress, technology, animal justice, ecology, esoterica, and the stars.

The Travellers were a Canadian folk singing group that formed in mid-1953. They are best known for their rendition of a Canadian version of "This Land Is Your Land" with lyrics that reference Canadian geography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Taylor (musician)</span> American musician (1949–2020)

Eric Taylor was an American singer-songwriter from Texas, known for his storytelling style, combining spoken word with anecdotal songs to create a theater-style performance. In addition to Taylor's nine solo releases, his songs have been recorded by Nanci Griffith, Lyle Lovett, Peter Cooper, and others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DW (Dave) Drouillard</span> American singer-songwriter

DW Drouillard is an American vocalist, songwriter and musician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Njacko Backo</span> Musical artist

Njacko Backo is a musician, poet, writer, composer, performer, and choreographer from Cameroon. He was born in 1958 and raised in a very musical family. He spent most of his childhood in a village called Bazou in western Cameroon where he was introduced to music. Like most children in his village, he began playing percussion and making instruments. However, with his Grandmother's assistance, Njacko met with the elders of the village who taught him to play music. He studied drumming, kalimba, percussion, and an African harp called zaa koua.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynne Hanson</span> Musical artist

Lynne Hanson is a Canadian singer-songwriter based in Ottawa, Ontario who has released eight solo albums and has toured internationally.

Rob Heath is a Canadian singer-songwriter. He has released four studio albums since starting his career in the mid 1980s. He is actively performing in North America, and accompanies his singing on acoustic guitar, solo or with supporting instruments. In 2011 Heath won first place in the Calgary Folk Music Festival Songwriting Contest, was the winner in 2003 at the New Folk competition at the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival, and won a Canadian Radio Music Award for “Songwriter of the Year”. He was also nominated for Canadian Folk Music Awards “English Songwriter of the Year”. Heath has written for Glen Campbell Music, Don Goodman Music and Criterion/Atlantic Music. Every month Heath opens the doors of his Edmonton home to host a songwriter circle for local singer/songwriters.

Margaret Christl is a Scottish-Canadian folksinger. Christl was born in England, grew up in Scotland and West Wales, and emigrated to Canada in 1966. She became active in the folk revival scene, playing many folk festivals, including the Mariposa Folk Festival, Vancouver Folk Music Festival, Edmonton Folk Festival and the Calgary Folk Music Festival, as well as the club and coffeehouse circuit. She worked with different folk labels over the years to release a number of works, most notably The Barley Grain for Me. This album was recorded with Ian Robb and William Laskin in 1976 via Folk-Legacy Records, and was dedicated to Edith Fowke, an influential scholar, folklorist, and collector of folk music in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Prince (musician)</span> Canadian musician (born 1986)

William Prince is a Canadian folk and country singer-songwriter based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ginalina</span> Canadian folk singer and songwriter

Gina Lam, known professionally as Ginalina, is a Canadian folk music singer, songwriter, children's musician, and children's author.

Don Sanders was an American singer-songwriter from Houston, Texas. Due to his unique blend of storytelling and songwriting he was sometimes called a "folk humorist." Throughout the years he shared the stage with Lyle Lovett, Nanci Griffith, Lightnin' Hopkins, Vince Bell and Janis Joplin. Sanders was an educator, a musician, a one-time founder of an independent record label, a founding member of KPFT radio, and a writer.

References

  1. ↑ Calum Slingerland, "Here are the 2024 Canadian Folk Music Awards Winners". Exclaim! , April 10, 2024.
  2. 1 2 Sylvain Cormier, "«For The Giving/Sans rien donner», Aleksi Campagne". Le Devoir , August 4, 2023.
  3. ↑ Vanderhorst, Jan (16 July 2022). "Aleksi Campagne – son of Paul Campagne and Connie Kaldor – makes his bilingual debut". Roots Music Canada. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  4. ↑ "Mariposa presenting 'unique outdoor festival' in October". Orillia Matters. 9 August 2022.
  5. ↑ Corby, Paul (5 January 2023). "A few of Corby's favourite songs from 2022". Roots Music Canada.
  6. ↑ "Previous Guests". Institute for Canadian Citizenship.
  7. ↑ "Tom Coxworth's 5 favourite acts of Folk Alliance". Roots Music Canada. 8 February 2023.
  8. ↑ "New Folk Finalist History Complete from 1976 through 2024". Kerrville Folk Festival.
  9. ↑ "Path to Creation". IMDB. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  10. ↑ "La Famille Campagne* – Noël En Famille". Discogs. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  11. ↑ Brendan Kelly, "Aleksi Campagne isn't 'just a folksinger with a guitar'". Montreal Gazette , April 4, 2018.
  12. 1 2 Small, Alan (November 9, 2023). "Folk music veteran Connie Kaldor keeps it in the family". Winnipeg Free Press .
  13. ↑ "Tam Ti Delam en tournée dans la province". Pour faire un monde. Canadian Broadcast Corporation. 6 November 2017.
  14. ↑ "Aleksi Campagne". Discogs. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  15. ↑ Decter, Rosie Long (6 February 2024). "Music Declares Emergency Canada to Honour Neil Young and Joni Mitchell". Billboard Canada.
  16. ↑ "CFMA 2024 - Awards Concert Night 2 / PMFC 2024 - Soirée concert de remise des prix 2". Youtube. St Johns. 7 April 2024.
  17. ↑ Barr, Greg (January 17, 1989). "Francophone pop band tries to find its bilingual niche". Ottawa Citizen.
  18. ↑ Metella, Helen (April 20, 1989). "Bilingualism haunts Hart Rouge; Deejays refuse airplay". Edmonton Journal.
  19. ↑ "Aleksi Campagne". IMDB. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  20. ↑ Jenna Melanson, "Aleksi Campagne announces bilingual album, For the Giving / Sans Rien Donner". Canadian Beats, July 9, 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.