Instrument: voice, bouzouki, bagpipes, guitar, percussion
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Pierre-Alexandre Saint-Yves became a student of music and voice at a tender age, furthering his training at college in Trois-Rivières. Pierre-Alexandre Saint-Yves works and is specialized in the field of music performed on early instruments.
In 2000, his passion led him to found Cercamon, a trio that performs traditional langue d’oc music, and that appears at several music festivals in Canada, the United States, and Europe each year.
He has also collaborated with several musical ensembles including Gérard Zuchetto’s Troubadours Art Ensemble in France, and with La Nef, Philippe Gélinas, Gapa, and Michel Cusson in Quebec.
With Andrew Wells-Oberegger, he founded the group De Lònga (new music) in 2007. Their first record, À l’abri du temps/Sheltering Time, was nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award as “Instrumental Album of the Year” in 2009.
Through his compositions, Pierre-Alexandre Saint-Yves reintegrates early instruments, giving them new life, so that they may allow him to produce rich and innovative music.
His musical compositions have been featured on the soundtracks to three documentaries and a contemporary dance piece.
He has received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec for several new music projects. In 2009, he also received the Young Ambassador Award from Forum Jeunesse de Lanaudière.
Since 1996, Pierre-Alexandre Saint-Yves has offered school workshops specializing in early music and instruments. Throughout Quebec, and even in Inuit communities, he has shared his art with elementary and high school students in over 400 workshops. As an actor-singer-instrumentalist, he has taken part in several performances for young audiences, notably Les Aventures du Chevalier de Beauchesne and Aucassin et Nicolette by La Nef, in which he played the main role.