http://www.agencedlefebvre.com/lorrainedesmarais-en

Pianist and composer Lorraine Desmarais, first women and jazz piano path-breaker in Canada is also known in the USA, Europe, Mexico, China, Indonesia and Africa for her solo, trio and her own big band performances. She has also appeared with many symphony orchestras with her original version of the George Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue; among them, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia in Spain.

It was in 1984 that her jazz career took off in this country, when the Montreal International Jazz Festival awarded her the Yamaha’s first prize. She now has twelve albums of original compositions to her name, including some jazz standards. Three of these albums (Trio Lorraine Desmarais , Jazz pour Noël and Big Band) have received FÉLIX awards at the ADISQ gala. She was also a guest pianist participating on over twelve others album.

“To rule that roost – consisting of many of the top musicians in Montreal – you’ve got to have more than leadership skills; you must have enough accomplishments under your belt to earn the respect of the players.”
By Ron Netsky ESM.ROCHESTER.EDU 

(Lorraine Desmarais Trio) - “Her playing was son strong, her right hand so rapid, her two-handed, close harmonies so reminiscent of Evans, that I was engaged fully as was the audience.” 
By Ed Martin - Inside Venice Florida 

“The musicians (Lorraine Desmarais Big Band) display unbridled virtuosity as well as unusual musical instinct as they bring cohesion to the many disparate elements of the music and generate tremendous high-voltage tension and hair-raising orchestral ingenuity to this music from beginning to end.”  By Raul da Gama - Jazz and Improvised, The Whole Note (Toronto) 

Home Base: Quebec