Musique Royale: The Emperor's Fiddler in Baddeck

Musique Royale announces a province-wide concert tour “The Emperor’s Fiddler” featuring star emerging baroque violinist who won “Discovery of the Year” from the annual Quebec music awards (Prix Opus), Marie Nadeau-Tremblay, as she and Kerry Bursey (baroque guitar and voice) explore the rich music of the European courts! The musicians will tour across Nova Scotia in July 2022 as part of Musique Royale’s 37th Summer Festival, with performances in historic venues in Wolfville, Tatamagouche, Baddeck, Parrsboro and Blue Rocks. 

The curation highlights influential violin virtuoso Johann Heinrich Schmelzer “the Emperor’s Fiddler”, Henry Purcell, known as “the English Orpheus”, Michel Lambert “Master of Music of the Royal family” under Louis XIV, Girolamo Frescobaldi one of the first keyboard virtuosi, and more. We’ll travel around France, Italy, and Germany and learn about the different characters who left their mark in the courts during the decadent and thrilling baroque era.

Clip of Marie Nadeau-Tremblay

Clip of Kerry Bursey

About Marie Nadeau-Tremblay baroque violin

During the final session of her undergraduate degree in violin performance at McGill University, Marie Nadeau-Tremblay decided to try her hand at the Baroque. She joined the university’s Baroque orchestra and fell head over heels in love! Transported by the beauty of this music— and finding resonance with its mode of expression— she decided to plunge headfirst into the Baroque world. After obtaining a Licentiate Degree, she pursued further studies, receiving a Master’s Degree in Early Music Performance. After being awarded numerous prizes and scholarships at McGill — including the prestigious Mary McLaughlin prize, which she won four years in a row — Marie Nadeau-Tremblay received an Early Music America grant in 2017. 

More recently, in 2019, she swept the honor roll of the Concours de musique ancienne Mathieu Duguay with an unprecedented four awards: First Prize, the People’s Choice Award, the Festival Montréal Baroque Prize, and the Été musical de Barachois Prize. Named “CBC’s Classical Revelation 2021-2022” and winner of the 2021 Opus prize for “Discovery of the year”, Marie is also awarded the Choquette Symcox prize by the Jeunesses Musicales du Canada the same year. Her album La Peste (2020) was named one of the 20 best classical albums of 2020 by the CBC and was nominated for a Juno Award. Her first solo album, Préludes et Solitudes, was released in October 2021. Marie plays on an original 1750s Thomas Perry instrument as well as an Amati model violin made by Timothy Johnson and generously lent to her by Mr Jacques Marchand.

About Kerry Bursey baroque guitar and voice

Kerry Bursey is a tenor and plucked string instrumentalist from Montréal, active on the early music scene across Canada. His voice is appreciated for its precise and luminous quality and he is a sought-after lutenist and guitarist, who’s invested in the rare practice of self-accompaniment, in early and folk music of northwestern traditions.

Kerry works with Canadian early music groups such as l’Harmonie des Saisons, Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montréal, Ensemble Caprice, Theatre of Early Music, Arion Baroque Orchestra, les Idées Heureuses, Alkemia and Clavecin en Concert. He has participated in Tafelmusik’s Baroque Summer Institute and he specialized on the music of J.S. Bach in Germany and Italy through the Stuttgart Bachakademie and the Weimar Bachkantatenakademie. He is a seasoned ensemble vocalist singing with groups such as the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Métropolitain, les Rugissants, I Musici, Ensemble Vocal Arts-Québec and the Church of St. Andrew & St. Paul Choir. He has featured on almost a dozen albums with labels including ATMA Classique and Deutsche Grammophone. In 2021, he was appointed as the new tenor of Quartom, the leading classical male vocal quartet in Québec.

On the popular scene, Kerry is hired as a session musician and creative collaborator because of his broad musical output. In 2020, he composed and performed the entire soundtrack of an award-winning film, 444, a psychological thriller which premiered at the 2021 Fantasia Film Festival in Montréal. He also sang Gregorian chants as a monk in the latest installment of the famous video game Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla.

Kerry holds a bachelor in classical guitar from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and studied early music singing at McGill University. He served as a violist in the Orchestre symphonique des jeunes de Montréal, also performing as a guitar soloist in the famous Concierto de Aranjuez and went on tour in China. He was a prize-winning finalist at the 2011 Grand Prix de guitare de Montréal and the Concours de musique de Sorel.