Christiane Leblanc has recently been appointed as Executive Director at the Montreal International Music Competition; bringing a wealth of classical music experience, both as a performer and executive.

After graduating from McGill with a Master of Musicology, Christiane held a variety of executive positions at Radio-Canada for 28 years. Having studied piano at McGill and sung in commercial choirs, Christiane has a unique perspective of a musician’s mindset. This has given her the ability to relate to performers with a genuine understanding of their challenges.

Christiane created and managed Espace Musique, a broadcast forum for classical, jazz and world music at CBC/Radio Canada. She has extensive experience as a producer of classical recordings (including with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra), serving as the link between the creative efforts of the orchestra and the technical expertise of sound technicians in the recording studio control room.

She is excited about the future of the Montreal International Music Competition.

Even though we’re celebrating our 10th Anniversary in May 2013, the competition is still relatively young. We want to continue developing our audience to a much larger public; and having violinist Maxim Vengerov participate as conductor and performer for our 10th Anniversary competition will help us to attract more people. It’s a real coup for us to have Vengerov, arguably one of the finest violinists in the world. It’s our hope that Montrealers will come to hear him, and that they will enjoy hearing performances by tomorrow’s stars of classical music.

We want to develop a festival atmosphere around the competition. It’s a wonderful opportunity for the young musicians to perform with an orchestra. Having a world-famous orchestra as an artistic partner certainly adds to the prestige of the competition. We are always well-received when we call other Canadian orchestras to arrange future performances for our finalists – in larger part because of our credibility.

Montreal will be celebrating its 375th Anniversary in 2017, and we have that as a goal for our competition to take on a significant role in the celebrations. Our city has an excellent reputation in the world of classical music, and we are working to expand that awareness; much as the Jazz Festival has done so successfully in their 33 year history. I invite Montrealers to come to our new Concert Prestige on May 13 to experience Maxim Vengerov, our own Stéphane Tétreault, MIMC 2004 first prize pianist Serhiy Salov and the Orchestre I Musici conducted by Jean-Marie Zeitouni.

For more information about the Montreal International Music Competition, please visit: www.concoursmontreal.ca

Related Posts