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Louise Forestier | |
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 Forestier in 2013 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Louise Belhumeur |
| Born | August 10, 1942 Shawinigan, Quebec, Canada |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, songwriter, actress |
Louise Forestier (born Louise Belhumeur on August 10, 1942) is a Canadian singer, songwriter and actress.
Born in Shawinigan, Quebec, Canada, Forestier was trained in acting at the National Theatre School in Montreal, but it was as a singer that she first became known in 1966, when she received the Renée Claude Trophy from Le Patriote, a boîte à chansons in east-end Montreal, and was named Discovery of the Year on the Radio-Canada TV program Jeunesse Oblige .
In 1968 she was part of the extraordinarily successful revue L'Osstidcho, followed the next year by L'Osstidchomeurt with Robert Charlebois, Yvon Deschamps and Mouffe. She and Charlebois recorded the landmark song "Lindberg'" and toured France in 1969.
In April 1970 Forestier starred in the Michel Tremblay, François Dompierre musical, Demain matin Montréal m'attend. She continued with acting, appearing in Jacques Godbout's 1972 film IXE-13 , singing on the original film score.
Forestier topped the Quebec charts in 1973 with a version of the folk song "La Prison de Londres", performed with guitarist Claude Lafrance, and pianist Jacques Perron. With this song Forestier started to turn away from the hard rock of her early career to a repertoire largely inspired by Quebec folk music, and to a more personal style, which she continued through the 1970s.
In 1980 Forestier played Marie-Jeanne, the robot waitress in the Montreal production Luc Plamondon, Michel Berger rock opera Starmania. Two years later, with Plamondon as producer, she staged the hit show Je suis au rendez-vous. This was the first of a series of shows in the 1980s, culminating in an appearance with Belgian singer Maurane as part of the Francofolies de Montréal in 1989.
In 1990 she appeared at the Place-des-Arts in Montreal as Émilie Nelligan, the mother of the poet in the romantic opera Nelligan by Michel Tremblay and André Gagnon.
Forestier defended Yann Martel's novel Histoire de Pi in the French version of Canada Reads , which was broadcast on Radio-Canada in 2004.
In March 2019, she was one of 11 singers from Quebec, alongside Ginette Reno, Diane Dufresne, Céline Dion, Isabelle Boulay, Luce Dufault, Laurence Jalbert, Catherine Major, Ariane Moffatt, Marie Denise Pelletier and Marie-Élaine Thibert, who participated in a supergroup recording of Renée Claude's 1971 single "Tu trouveras la paix" after Claude's diagnosis with Alzheimer's disease was announced. [1]
Michel Tremblay is a French-Canadian novelist and playwright.
Émile Nelligan was a Canadian Symbolist poet from Montreal who wrote in French. Even though he stopped writing poetry after being institutionalized at the age of 19, Nelligan remains an iconic figure in Quebec culture and was considered by Edmund Wilson to be the greatest Canadian poet in any language.
As a cosmopolitan province, Quebec is a home to varied genres of music, ranging from folk to hip hop. Music has played an important role in Quebecer culture. In the 1920s and '30s, singer/songwriter Madam Bolduc performed comedic songs in a folk style with Irish influences. Quebec's most popular artists of the last century include Félix Leclerc (1950s), Gilles Vigneault (1960s–present), Kate and Anna McGarrigle (1970s–present) and Céline Dion (1980s–present).
Diane Dufresne, is a French Canadian singer and painter, and is known for singing a large repertoire of popular Quebec songs.
Robert Charlebois, OC, OQ is a Québecois author, composer, musician, performer and actor.
Marie Denise Pelletier is a francophone Canadian singer. She served as President of Artisti, a copyright collective for music artists operated by Quebec's l'Union des artistes (UDA).
Laurence Jalbert is a pop and rock singer-songwriter from Quebec.
Isabelle Boulay, is a French Canadian singer.
Diane Tell is a Canadian musician who was born in Quebec City, Quebec. She entered the Val d’Or conservatory at the age of six. She continued her studies at the Montréal conservatory and then at CEGEP Saint-Laurent and she wrote her first songs at the age of twelve. As one of Québec's pioneering female singer-songwriters, she proposed her personal repertoire over the course of her first four albums. She won six Félix prizes before the age of 25: breakout artist, best artist, best album, best song and, twice, songwriter of the year. Several of her songs have become SOCAN Classics and Si j’étais un homme was inducted in the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2017. She earned a MIDEM Award for her album Chimères and a Victoire Award for her album Faire à nouveau connaissance. In 1990, she was chosen by Plamondon, Berger and Savary to play a leading role in the musical La légende de Jimmy. Following that, she played the lead and composed the score for another musical, Marilyn Montreuil, written and stage directed by Jérôme Savary and the Théâtre National du Chaillot, in Paris. Over 300 performances of both shows were presented in France and Europe. Over the past 25 years, Tell has toured relentlessly, written, composed and recorded in Canada, France, the U.K. and Switzerland. In 2018, she produced her 15th studio album of original material in Montréal. As an independent artist, she owns the phonographic rights of her entire catalogue, manages her own publishing company, and produces and finances her albums herself. Also a photographer, she directs the majority of her music videos. Her YouTube channel gets 400,000 views per month on average. In her blog, Diane Cause Musique, she engages up-and-coming artists by explaining the inner workings of the music industry.
Claude Gauthier is a Quebec singer-songwriter and actor.
Fabienne Thibeault is a French Canadian singer. She is particularly known for her role in Starmania. Thibeault has released numerous albums over her career. She has been the recipient of two Félix Awards.
"Les Yeux de la faim" is a French-language song written by Canadian journalist Gil Courtemanche and Canadian composer Jean Robitaille. It was recorded by a one-off supergroup of many musicians to raise funds for the Quebec-Africa Foundation, a charity to help people facing famine in Africa. It was released as a chartity single in May 1985 in Quebec. "Les Yeux de la faim" was one of a number of such supergroup singles released around this time, along with "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in the United Kingdom, "We Are the World" in the United States and "Tears Are Not Enough" in English Canada.
The album 1 fois 5, released in 1976, includes the greatest hits of the artists Robert Charlebois, Gilles Vigneault, Claude Léveillée, Yvon Deschamps and Jean-Pierre Ferland, interpreted on Mount Royal on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day.
Luce Dufault is a Canadian singer. She is of French descent. She performed in two musicals from Luc Plamondon, La Légende de Jimmy and Starmania. She recorded a few hits including Soirs de scotch, Au delà des mots and Ce qu'il reste de nous.
Between Salt and Sweet Water, also known as Drifting Upstream, is a 1967 Québécois film directed by Michel Brault, co-written by Brault, Gérald Godin, Marcel Dubé, Claude Jutra and Denys Arcand.
A No-Hit No-Run Summer is a Canadian sports drama film, directed by Francis Leclerc and released in 2008.
Louisette Dussault was a Canadian actress and writer from Quebec.
France Castel, née Bégin in Sherbrooke, Quebec) is a Canadian singer, actress and broadcaster.
Renée Claude was a Canadian actress and singer who was known as an interpretive singer, particularly of songs by Stéphane Venne, Michel Conte, Georges Brassens and Léo Ferré.
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