Ménestrel

We are happy to welcome Janelle Luckyk, soprano and violin, and Kerry Bursey, tenor and lute. Based in Nova Scotia, this popular duo will offer “In the Garden’s Folly” Here is how they describe their program:

“Drawing inspiration from the English tradition of the Follies: those elegant, ornamental pavilions found within landscape gardens, where sitters could admire the surrounding decorative greens, evoking both harmony and tempered wild beauty. Ménestrel has curated a program of Elizabethan airs, French baroque from the court of Versailles, paired with ballads and crystalline melodies that bring you into a sonic dreamworld celebrating all the colour and elegance of this ornate musical era!”

Gabriel Bataille (c. 1575–1630) - J'avais cru qu'en vous aymant


Joseph Chabanceau de La Barre (1633-1678) - Allez, Bergers, dessus l'herbette


Antoine Boesset (1586-1643) Nos esprits libres et contents


Honoré d'Ambruys (~1660-~1702) - Le doux silence de nos bois


Traditional, from Guernsey - Le long d'un vert bocage


Pierre Guédron (1570-1620) - Si jamais mon ame blessée
Josquin des Prez (1450-1521) - Mille Regretz



Gilles Binchois (1400-1460) - Adieu ma tres belle maistresse


Intermission

Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) - Se l'aura spira tutta vezzosa



Barbara Strozzi (1619–1677) - Che si puo fare


Claudio Monteverdi (1567 - 1643) - Ohimè, ch'io cado


Claudio Monteverdi (1567 - 1643) - Si dolce è'l tormento


John Dowland (1563-1626) - Can she excuse my wrongs?


John Dowland (1563-1626) - Time stands still


John Dowland (1563-1626) - Now o now


John Dowland (1563-1626) - Come again


Henry Purcell (1659-1695) - Fairest Isle


Henry Purcell (1659-1695) - She loves and she confesses



Henry Purcell (1659-1695) - Sweeter than roses


Henry Purcell (1659-1695) - If music be the food of love

Janelle Lucyk is a leader among an emerging generation of Canadian artists specializing in old music and historically informed performance, taking ideas from conception to the stage.

Janelle is the artistic director of Ménestrel, her ensemble with Kerry Bursey which produces alternative early music mixing ancient repertoire with oral folk traditons. In Since 2022, Ménestrel has been producing a "Messiah-on-the-go!" congregating twenty emerging performers from across Canada to perform Handel's masterpiece in historic Nova Scotian venues. Janelle is director of the new series ArtChoral at La Grande Salle du 9e, the recently reopened historic Art Deco venue in Montreal. Following mentor and arts champion Barbara Butler, Janelle is Artistic and Administrative Director of Musique Royale (est. 1985), a music presenter based in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia which enriches historic spaces through the sharing of world class early music, and much more. Programming includes over seventy concerts through the year in venues across the spectacular maritime province.

With well over a hundred concerts given in 2024, Janelle performed and toured in all of Canada's thirteen provinces and territories last year, with many additional workshops, masterclasses and outreach events shared. In the summer Ménestrel was in residency in Europe for concerts, recording and outreach.

In fall 2022, Janelle was invited by legendary organist Xaver Varnus to perform at his two sold out performances in Hungary, including at the spectacular Bartók National Concert Hall in Budapest. She has had the good fortune of working as a soloist with the Kings College Chapel Choir under five-time Grammy winner Paul Halley on many unforgettable concerts including Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 and Selva Morale e Spirituale and multiple Bach Passions. Janelle graduated in 2014 with distinction from the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles in Belgium and completed her Masters in Management at Durham University in the UK where she was awarded the Best Soloist by Music Durham, and Best Female Soloist by her peers. While in Europe, she formed Voces Desuper, an ensemble performing regularly in the magnificent Cathédrale de Saints-Michel-et-Gudule, and especially at the Te Deum ceremony for the King and Queen of Belgium.

Janelle is ever grateful to the Canada Council of the Arts, the Federal Department of Canadian Heritage, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Mécénat Musica, Arts Nova Scotia and Brent Rinaldi for their support.

Kerry Bursey is a Canadian tenor and plucked string instrumentalist from Montréal. An early music specialist and a versatile singer, he is acclaimed for his “clear voice, made of dreamy troubadouresque sweetness” (Ôlyrix) and “beneficent tenderness” (Le Temps). He is a sought-after lutenist and guitarist, notably invested in self-accompaniment, from lute songs to folk music. Recently, he made his European debut as a soloist at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Manchester International Festival, Bregenzerfestspieler and the Southbank Centre. In 2024, he will sing at the Muzikgebouw in Amsterdam and at the Ruhrtriennale.

He regularly works as a soloist with early music groups such as Ensemble Caprice, Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, Harmonie des Saisons, Theatre of Early Music, les Idées Heureuses, la Nef, Pallade Musica, Infusion Baroque and Clavecin en Concert. He tours internationally with his ensemble, Ménestrel, co-founded with soprano Janelle Lucyk. He is a member of Quartom, the leading classical vocal quartet in Québec.

Kerry is frequently hired as a session musician and creative collaborator because of his broad musical output, from pop to video games. He composed and performed the soundtrack of award-winning thriller, 444, which premiered at Fantasia Festival, and worked on the sci-fi movie Mistral Spatial. He frequently works with Ubisoft and notably sang gregorian chants as a monk in the game Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla.

Kerry holds a masters’s degree in classical guitar from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and has studied voice performance at McGill University. He was a winner at the 2011 Grand Prix de Guitare de Montréal.

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