Our team
Monique Richard, Artistic Director
Monique Richard is a titular professor in the Department of Music at the Université de Moncton in New Brunswick where, since 2006, she has been responsible for the vocal ensembles, including the Department of Music Choir, as well as for the music education and conducting technique courses. In addition to directing the Louisbourg Choir, she is also the musical director of the Beauséjour Choir and the Faubourg du Mascaret Intergenerational Choir.
She received a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and Pedagogy in 1985 and a Bachelor of Music Education in 1986 from the Université de Moncton. In 1994, she completed a Master's degree in Choral Conducting with Fred Stoltzfus at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. She obtained her Doctorate in Education from the Université de Moncton in 2013 and is interested in the role of teachers as cultural transmitters and in the integration of the arts in Francophone minority settings.
Monique Richard is very involved and active on the choral singing scene in Acadia. Her reputation allows her to be invited to the Atlantic region, Quebec and France as a judge or clinician at music festivals. She has been invited to conduct the Mount Allison Choral Society and to collaborate with them in subsequent joint concerts. In 2011 and 2016, Robert Kortgaard, director of the Indian River Music Festival in Prince Edward Island, invited her to conduct Carmina Burana. Finally, in 2013, she conducted the Mission Saint-Charles Choir concert at the 38th Lamèque Baroque Music Festival.
Since 1989, Monique Richard has been the director of the Beauséjour Choir, a community ensemble composed of some fifty female voices. Continuing its tradition of excellence since its founding in the 1960s, the choir has made several recordings for Radio-Canada and was one of the ensembles selected for the Radio-Canada Chœurs d'ici, chansons d'ici competition in 2018.
After an 18-year career in schools as a musician-educator and educational agent in charge of arts and music, Monique Richard is always looking to develop different initiatives to support choral singing in schools. In particular, she organised the Chantons en chœur gatherings in 2017 and 2018, for 8 to 14 year-olds, in collaboration with various organisations. In addition, as part of her university research project to study the benefits of choral singing for seniors, Monique Richard recently set up the Faubourg du Mascaret Intergenerational Choir, made up of some thirty seniors and students from the Music Department.
Monique Richard has choral singing and Acadia tattooed on her heart. Distinguished by her charisma, energy and musical sensitivity, this conductor seeks both to preserve the tradition and to stimulate the evolution of choral singing in francophone New Brunswick. She is the perfect example of a cultural transmitter who practises what she teaches, constantly striving for excellence and valuing the place of modern, living Acadian culture. Her unconditional love of the Acadian francophonie and her authenticity lead her to want to create rallying projects that resemble her: sensitive, unique and resolutely turned towards the future.
Board of directors
President : Thomas Maillet
Vice-president : Dominique Ratté
Secretary : Johanne Huard
Administrators
Brigitte Lavoie
Jolène Richard
Bernice Losier
Jean-François Mallet
Réjean Poirier, founder
Réjean Poirier is the founder of the Louisbourg Choir, New Brunswick’s only professional vocal ensemble.
He has studied literature and theatre at the Université de Moncton. His studies completed, he worked in public relations with the Université de Moncton (1968-1971) and with Canadian National (1971-1974). Involved in several cultural activities, he left CN in 1974 to found a cultural production centre, Les Productions de l’Étoile, and the Théâtre populaire d’Acadie of which he was the artistic director during ten years (1975-1985).
In addition to his interest in artistic direction and theatre production, he developed a great passion for the management of cultural enterprises. From 1985 to 1993, he was artistic director and manager of Vancouver’s Théâtre La Seizième. Then, from 1993 to 1995, he worked as a consultant for the Fédération des francophones de la Colombie-Britannique to develop a cultural policy for British Columbia’s francophone community.
During the course of his career, he led many workshops and served as a consultant to a variety of organizations, including the Canada Council of the Arts, la Fédération culturel canadienne française, the governments of Manitoba and Alberta, the Ontario Arts Council and the British Columbia Touring Council. He has also been a member of the theatre jury for the Canada Council of the Arts and has represented Jeunesses Musicales Canada in the Atlantic region from 2006 to 2017.
Although he worked chiefly in the theatre, Réjean Poirier was and is a devoted lover of classical music and opera. After an absence of ten years, he returned to New Brunswick to found his own company, which specializes in arts marketing and cultural project management. It is in this capacity that he became involved for a period of seven years with the Lamèque International Baroque Music Festival.
In 2004-2005 he was engaged by the City of Dieppe to develop, in consultation with the community, the conceptual plan for what would become that city’s Centre for Arts and Culture. Also in 2004, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Acadia, he produced a spectacular period extravaganza, starring musicians, singers, and dancers from Canada and from France. This show was presented at the Montreal Baroque Festival and at the historic Monument Lefebvre in Memramcook. From this event was to emerge the Festival of Early Music, which has had its home base in Sackville since 2006. In 2015, he embarked on a new adventure by creating Musique Saint-Joachim à Bertrand, an organization dedicated to the dissemination of classical music and world music.
Having passed away on December 30, 2022, Réjean Poirier leaves an important legacy to the cultural scene for which the choristers and the entire team are extremely grateful.
