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Francois Houle
Inspired by collaborations with the world’s top musical innovators, François has developed a unique improvisational language, virtuosic and rich with sonic embellishment and technical extensions. A sought after soloist and chamber musician, he has actively expanded the clarinet’s repertoire by commissioning some of today’s leading Canadian and international composers and premiering over one hundred new works. He has collaborated with leading ensembles in Canada, including Turning Point Ensemble, Standing Wave, Bozzini Quartet, Fibonacci Trio, among others. He has twice been listed by Downbeat magazine as a “Talent Deserving Wider Recognition” and was hailed as a “Rising Star” in Downbeat’s 2008 Critics’ Poll.
His extensive touring has led to solo appearances at major festivals across Canada, the United States and Europe, and he has released more than a dozen recordings, earning multiple Juno Award and West Coast Music Award nominations. In 2006, François was the featured soloist in Lutosławski’s Dance Preludes with the CBC Radio Orchestra, a performance hailed by the Los Angeles Times. In 2007, he composed and premiered a concerto for clarinet which he went on to record with the Turning Point Ensemble for a 2009 world wide release on the ATMA Classique label.
François studied at McGill University, went on to win the National Debut competition, and completed his studies at Yale University. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts and at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbria, Italy, and was a featured soloist in the International Clarinet Association’s 2007 and 2008 ClarinetFests. He is a faculty member at the Vancouver Community College School of Music, and in 2006 he became Artistic Director of the Vancouver Creative Music Institute. In 2008 he was appointed as “Associate Composer” of the Canadian Music Centre.
Gear
François Houle is a Backun artist and clinician. He plays LeBlanc design by Backun Legacy clarinets, Backun mouthpieces, bells, and barrels.
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François Houle: Insider Listening that Makes You Clever
by Kerilie McDowall
Canadians and local Vancouverites have been in awe at BC, Canada's prestigious regular rising star clarinetist François Houle's international ranking status. Houle creates brilliantly fascinating compositions and such clever, innovative work. He has released seven albums as a leader from 2022-2023 and has four more plus on the way. Incredibly he will have released 11 albums as a leader within two years soon, with four additional albums as a sideplayer. Yes, a total of 15 albums or more.
read moreFrancois Houle, Sei Miguel & other new Clean Feed Releases
by Maurice Hogue
There's plenty of great new music to get excited about in this edition of OMJ. Clean Feed Records, that wonderful label in Portugal, just dropped a whole bunch of new albums and I'm happy to dig into these--the Italian band {m: Roots Magic}} that digs into blues and avant-garde, the unique trumpeter Sei Miguel , Canadian clarinetist Francois Houle & his Genera sextet with a tribute to their late friend and one of the most important people in Canadian and ...
read moreFrançois Houle, Marco von Orelli: Make That Flight
by Alberto Bazzurro
Sessantun anni, canadese del Québec l'uno, cinquantadue anni, svizzero di Basilea l'altro, François Houle e Marco von Orelli sono musicisti appartenenti a un'area di sperimentazione jazzistica sicuramente influenzata da una visione che definiremmo europea" della contemporaneità in fatto di suono, ormai noti agli ascoltatori più attenti da un bel po' di tempo. Questo loro tête-à-tête ne riconferma, e anzi ne rafforza, l'immagine estremamente positiva che avevamo maturato nei loro riguardi lungo il succitato lasso di tempo. Vi ...
read moreGordon Grdina: Night's Quietest Hour
by Mark Corroto
Gordon Grdina might be proof of the saying you can't keep a good man down." With Night's Quietest Hour he turns his attention once again to traditional Iraqi and Arabic folk music. This release by his small big band Haram follows Her Eyes illuminate (Songlines, 2012) and includes a guest appearance by Marc Ribot. Much like Ribot's forays into Cuban music with his Los Cubanos Postizos and Frantz Casseus' Haitian compositions, Grdina aspires for musical authenticity without being patronizing. And, ...
read moreMatt Choboter's Hypnopompia: Sleep Inertia
by Doug Collette
In keeping with its title, these eight tracks of just over fifty-minutes comprise a waking/sleeping dreamscape where conscious thoughts crystallize. then turn amorphous in an engrossing cyclical pattern. The fourteen or so minutes of the two-part Converging Diverging" elucidate the most literal instrumental explication of the concept: replete with far too much ornate detail to fit the description of free jazz, the musicianship nevertheless radiates an abiding spontaneity with all instrumental commentary and elaboration/embellishment from around the quintet.Canadian ...
read moreITACA: Vortex
by Neri Pollastri
Il quartetto ITACA, protagonista di questa diciassettesima uscita di nusica.org, deve il proprio nome all'incontro dei due paesi d'origine dei suoi componenti. La sua denominazione è infatti l'acronimo di Italia --da cui provengono Nicola Fazzini e Alessandro Fedrigo, le due anime di nusica.org -e Canada--paese degli altri due musicisti, il clarinettista Francois Houle e il batterista Nick Fraser. È in Italia che la formazione ha preso vita, grazie a due residenze del 2016 a Novara Jazz e a ...
read moreFrancois Houle - Alexander Hawkins - Harris Eisenstadt: You Have Options
by Glenn Astarita
The late co-founder of the Vancouver Jazz Festival, Ken Pickering, recommended British pianist Alexander Hawkins to consummate this trio featuring Canadians: drummer Harris Eisenstadt (drums) and clarinetist Francois Houle. And, based on the output of this exquisite studio set, it was a sound decision to align with the pianist, who for several years has performed with Eisenstadt in the Convergence Quartet. Houle's melodious lines occasionally adopt flotation-like aspects, as the trio executes staggered asynchronous grooves with quaint shifts ...
read moreFrancois Houle's, Alexander Hawkins' And Harris Eisenstadt's Collective Trio Will Release You Have Options On November 9 On Songlines
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GoMedia PR
This collective trio was born when the late (and greatly missed) Ken Pickering, co-founder and artistic director of Vancouver’s jazz festival, recommended Alexander Hawkins for the piano chair in a new Houle project for the 2014 festival. Houle already had Brooklyn-based fellow Canadian Harris Eisenstadt in mind—Harris had recently toured and recorded in his 5+1 project (Genera, Songlines 2012). And Eisenstadt and Hawkins had played together for years in the collective Convergence Quartet. The Oxford-based Hawkins however was unknown to ...
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Benoit Delbecq and Francois Houle Reunite on "Because She Hoped"
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GoMedia PR
Third CD from Acclaimed Pianist and Clarinetist Released on Songlines Recordings Released on November 8 Pianist Benoit Delbecq and clarinetist Francois Houle, who last collaborated as a duo on 2002's Dice Thrown, have once again joined forces on Because She Hoped, their third recording as a duo on Songlines Recordings. Because She Hoped was released on November 8. Both musicians have a long and storied history with the label. Houle, who is based in Vancouver, Canada (as is Songlines), was ...
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Longa Nahawad
From: Night's Quietest HourBy Francois Houle