Vincent Boilard
Biography Vincent Boilard
Vincent Boilard
Hailing from Mont-Joli, a small town in Eastern Quebec, Vincent Boilard is Associate Principal Oboe at the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) and has been teaching at the Université de Montréal (UdeM) since 2015. He is a renowned classical musician and teacher in Quebec.
In 2009, after getting his diploma from the Conservatoire de musique de Québec with Philippe Magnan as his teacher, Vincent Boilard left the province to start a Master of Arts in Performance at the Haute École de musique de Genève. In Switzerland, he studied with great oboe masters, such as Roland Perrenoud, Maurice Bourgue and Heinz Holliger.
Before becoming a permanent member of the OSM, Vincent Boilard played in the Orchestre symphonique du Jura and the Orchestre du Festival de Verbier in Switzerland, as well as in the Orchestre symphonique de Laval, the Orchestre symphonique de Sherbrooke and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. He player under the baton of renowned conductors such as Kent Nagano, Valery Gergiev, Yuri Temirkanov, Manfred Honeck, Neeme Järvi and Gianandrea Noseda.
Aside from his orchestra career, Vincent Boilard enjoys being a soloist and a chamber musician. He regularly plays with his colleagues from the OSM in smaller groups and performs as a soloist as often as possible. He played solo with the Violons du Roy, the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, the Orchestre symphonique de Sherbrooke and the Orchestre symphonique de l’Estuaire. He also gave recitals for the festival Concerts aux Îles du Bic, the Domaine Forget International Festival and on a Canadian tour with the Jeunesses Musicales Canada.
Over the years, Vincent Boilard’s efforts have been rewarded. He received grants from the Conseil des Arts du Canada and the Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture. He also won prizes in several competitions such as the Concours de musique du Canada, the Concours jeunes artistes Radio-Canada, the Prix d’Europe and the Concours OSM Standard Life.
Committed to his teaching role, Vincent Boilard doesn’t miss an opportunity to share his knowledge and passion with music lovers from all ages. In addition to his work at the UdeM, he teaches and gives masterclasses at the Domaine Forget International Music and Dance Academy. He also takes part in “La musique aux enfants”, an OSM initiative that introduces preschoolers to classical music.
On top of his recent recordings with the OSM, it is possible to listen to Vincent Boilard playing with the pianist Olivier Hébert-Bouchard on their album Dialogue, which is regularly played on Radio-Canada and available on music platforms online.
Quatuor Molinari
nternationally acclaimed by the public and the critics since its foundation in 1997, the Molinari Quartet has given itself the mandate to perform works from the 20th- and the 21st-century repertoire for string quartet, to commission new works and to initiate discussions between musicians, artists and the public. Recipient of 23 Opus Prizes awarded by the Quebec Music Council for musical excellence on the Quebec concert stage, the Molinari Quartet as been described by the critics as an “essential” and “prodigious” ensemble, even “Canada’s answer to the Kronos or Arditti Quartet”.
The Molinari Quartet has established itself as one of Canada’s leading string quartets. In addition to many Canadian works, including the 13 quartets by R. Murray Schafer, the Molinari Quartet’s repertoire includes quartets by Bartók, Berg, Britten, Debussy, Dutilleux, Glass, Gubaidulina, Kurtág, Ligeti, Lutoslawski, Martinů, Penderecki, Ravel, Scelsi, Schnittke, Shostakovich, Webern, and Zorn.
The Molinari Quartet was heard twice as soloist with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal under Charles Dutoit and in the spring of 2018, it premiered the Concerto for string quartet and orchestra by Samy Moussa with the Orchestre Métropolitain of Montréal under the direction of Nicholas Carter. The Quartet has been invited to perform in numerous concert series and festivals in Canada, Mexico, China, and Europe.
Its recordings on the ATMA Classique label have received international critical acclaim including two Editors’ Choices by Gramophone magazine and rave revues from, among others, The Strad, Fanfare, and Diapason. Its recording of the complete György Kurtág quartets has received a Diapason d’Or in December 2016 and the prestigious German Echo Klassik award for 20th- and 21st-century chamber music in July 2017. The Molinari Quartet’s recording of quartets by John Zorn, published in 2019, received the Opus Prize for Album of the Year – modern, contemporary music, and was nominated for a Juno award in January 2020.
