Rachel Therrien

Rachel Therrien is a trumpet and flugelhorn player, composer and music producer working between New York City and Montreal. She is considered one of the most promising jazz musicians of her generation (Downbeat, All About Jazz, Radio-Canada). Recognized for her personal touch and her many influences of traditional jazz, afro-latin and global music, Rachel has a world class reputation, versatile and innovator.

Rachel Therrien has won several competitions and nominations, to name a few: JUNOS nominations (2021 – VENA + 2023 – Ostara Project) “Best Jazz Album”, ADISQ nominations (2021 – VENA + 2022 – Music Producer for Noé Lira’s Latiendo la Tierra), GRAMMY AWARDS nomination (2022 – Virtual Birdland, Arturo O’farrill “Best Latin Jazz Album”), the 2015 TD Grand Prize of the Montreal International Jazz Festival, the 2016 Stingray Rising Star Award, a nomination for the 2018 Independent Music Award in New York for “Best Jazz Album Producer” and the LOJIQ award at the 2018 Bourse RIDEAU to help develop her career in France.

Rachel Therrien has now produced 6 albums under her name and many more to come. The most recent, MI HOGAR (February 10th 2023, Outside In Music), a respectfully Latin Jazz album recorded in New York City, Montreal and Toronto with about 20+ musicians. The previous one, VENA, recorded in Paris in May 2019 with her Europeen Quartet with whom she tours Europe since 2017 was launched in the spring of 2020 under the French etiquette Bonsaï Music and wins 2 nominations for Jazz Album of the Year at the ADISQ and JUNO Awards as well as 4 stars at Downbeat. With her Montreal Quintet, Therrien produced 3 albums under the labels Multiple Chord Music (CA), and Truth Revolution Records (USA) including Why Don’t You Try (2017), winner of a critique in the Downbeat Editor’s Pick. In 2016, Rachel launches a first ethnomusicology research project with the world album Pensamiento: Proyecto Columbia (2016), recorded with 13 musicians in Bogota, Colombia. She is now working on her 6th album, this time purely Latin Jazz with about 20 special guests. This last project was recorded in Montreal, Toronto and New York in January 2022. The impressive press kit of Rachel Therrien includes a Grammy nomination as a side woman of the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra and gratifying critics from many recognized news outlets (Le Devoir, La Presse, All About Jazz, New York Hot House, Downbeat, Latin Jazz Corner, …)

Carrying her project solo since 2009, Rachel Therrien performed her music in many festivals, theater and jazz clubs throughout the Americas, Europe and the Caribbean. To name just a few, special guest at the International Jazz Day in Odessa, Ukraine, the renowned French Festival Juan Les Pins Jazz Jazz Festival, Kremenchuk Jazz Festival in Ukraine, Polanco Jazz Festival in Mexico City, Havana Jazz Festival in Cuba, Lula World Festival in Toronto, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola and 55 Bar in New York, Andy’s Jazz Club in Chicago, B-Flat Berlin in Germany, Gode Jazz in Valencia, Spain as well as most of the Canadian Jazz Festivals. She gave masterclasses in Marciac, France, as well as at the North Carolina University and was invited in 2022 to participate at the International Trumpet Guild, a staple for trumpetists around the world.

Rachel obtained her first cycle Jazz diploma at Université de Montréal, an artistic management certificate, a music certificate from Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba and participated in 2012 at the Banff Center Jazz and Creative Music workshop where she met Dave Douglas and Vijay Iyer. Rachel also worked with many mentors including Ron DiLauro, Elpidio Chappotin, Laurie Frink, John McNeil, Jonathan Finlayson, Clarence Penn, Ralph Alessi and many more.

The talented trumpetist also performed alongside many renowned jazz and world artists: Tony Allen, the Grammy winner Arturo O’Farrill & Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, DIVA Jazz Orchestra, Ostara Project, Roberto Fonseca, Michel Legrand, Pen Peplowski, Pedrito Martinez, Claudio Roditi, Ingrid Jensen, Anat Cohen, Miggy Augmented Orchestra, Darcy James Argue & Secret Society, Mariachi Flor de toloache, Yacouba Sissoko, Benito Gonzalez, Irving Acao, Tabou Combo, Skah Shah, Orchestre Septentrional d’Haïti, Klimax, Orquesta Anacaona, to name just a few. She also worked a few times for the Quebec T.V. show Belle et Bum where she accompanied big names including Alex Nevsky, Mara Tremblay, Daniel Boucher, Lisa Leblanc, Joseph Edgar, Marie-Josée Lord and the American folk singer Joseph Arthur.

Finally, Rachel Therrien plays a key role in the Montreal Jazz scene by promoting it and opening its borders as well as by being an example for emerging musicians and working for the community. In 2013, she founded the “Montreal Jazz Composers Series” that led more than 200 American and Canadian composers to perform their original music and to work together for an audience of old and young during the Montreal International Jazz Festival. She believes that jazz is “a philosophy of conversation between musicians of different backgrounds through improvisation, and as musicians, our mission is to work for the prosperity of the genre through ensuring that our generation of non-musicians is able to live and appreciate this language”.