Claude Champagne's Timeline: Life, Photos, and Key Events

" ... I wrote a symphony called Symphonie gaspésienne which expressed ... Canada's east, that is, the province of Quebec, and this work [Altitude] represents Canada's west, that is, the Rocky Mountains. And [these are] the impressions that I received ... upon seeing the Rocky Mountains, the mystery ... and all those things that impress you profoundly and [that] I took in unconsciously, filtered through my consciousness and expressed [themselves] through music."

" ... I see the first part as the expression of Canada's primitive life ... less refined ... in a language ... such as the language of the Huron ... I fused that to a centre that I call a meditation, in which you listen to ... all the acoustic sensibilities in nature, the calm, and I returned to the modern world with the words of St. Francis of Assisi ... and at the end I have echoes with the choirs ... which again give you the immense thing that dominates you."

" ... and, after hearing Gaspésia ... it struck me as a kind of pastel, and that annoyed me, because I wanted to create an acoustic fresco; and that is why I began again with the same material, the same elements that I had developed, and I really did, [succeed] I think, [with] what I call the Symphonie gaspésienne"

" I was very fond of his jigs and other dance tunes, and spent whole afternoons listening to him play. They tell me that I found two little sticks and tried to catch the rhythm of his pieces. So much for a very early experience."

" it seems she had a rather poetic side to her nature, something of an imaginative dreamer."

" y mother had inherited a bit of those qualities, quite different from my father, who was a very exuberant man, whereas my mother was introspective and liked to meditate and daydream."

" We'd get together on the Saturday or Sunday evening, at an aunt or uncle's place. Everyone contributed his or her performance, singing or playing the violin or piano or some other instrument, and we often put on little plays. Because, I must say, in that family, the Champagne family, everyone loved the arts, especially theatre."

" That was what started my career as a composer, for he [Laliberté] decided that I should go to Europe. He knew Rachmaninoff very well, and after a concert [by the pianist] he and I dined with Rachmaninoff, and he showed him my symphonic poem, after which Rachmaninoff urged me to go into composition .... So that with one thing and another, the fact is that Laliberté actually started me on my career as composer. And it was his idea that I should go to Europe. I should say that when I left Mon"