Drawing on diverse musical influences including French chansonniers, folk, Celtic, rock, and Broadway, the five Nova Scotia musicians who are Grand Dérangement bring their contagious performance to the Yorktowne Hotel on Sunday, May 22, at 4 p.m., for a Susquehanna Folk Music Society concert.
While the group takes its name from the 1755 expulsion of the Acadians from eastern Canada, it also refers to their determination to rouse their audiences. And that they do with a passion. Their music is exciting, the show is a visual feast, and the insightful and yet highly poetic songs defy audience members to sit still. Add rhythms that are described as contagious and dancers who are enthralling and you have a production that is not to be missed.
Grand Dérangement has succeeded in acquiring an acclaimed international reputation. It acts as an Acadian ambassador, and its popularity in Europe and the U.S. is on the rise. The musicians are raising the profile of Acadians, and Michael Thibault’s songs are setting new standards for Acadian songwriting.
The group’s members are: Daniel LeBlanc (fiddle, guitar), a graduate of California’s Guitar Institute of Technology, Briand Melanson (drums, vocals), a graduate of California’s Percussion Institute of Technology, Jean-Pascal Comeau (bass, step dancer), who has studied at the Bass Institute of Technology, Charles Robicheau (guitar), a self-taught guitarist who has toured with many bands and is well respected for his ability to adapt to many musical styles, and Monique Comeau (step dancer, guitar, vocals), who performed in the step dancing troupe La Baie en Joie and in the Acadian play Evangeline by Longfellow.
Grand Dérangement holds a special place in the world of French language music, building a bridge between the old and the new, between the local and the universal. It is creating a new Acadian musical repertoire that will survive for as long as Acadian culture remains alive and vital.
Concert tickets are $20 General Admission, $15 for SFMS members $10 for students. Advance tickets are available through Brown Paper Tickets at (800) 838-3006 or online at http://www.BrownPaperTickets.com. This performance is made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Humanities Council. Funding also is provided by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, administered by the Cultural Alliance of York County. For more information, visit the Susquehanna Folk Music Society web site at http://www.sfmsfolk.org
–John Hope
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