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Vishtèn’s Bio There's an old saying that goes something like, “ Go out and make your mark in the world exploring the new ways but don't turn your back on your roots”. The members of Vishten have been doing just that for the past seven years, touring their brand of new-traditional Acadian music in over 1000 performances rendered in 8 different countries. Made up of third generation Acadians living separate but paralell musical experiences, twin sisters Pastelle and Emmanuelle LeBlanc from Prince Edward Island, Canada have teamed up with Pascal Miousse and Louis-Charles Vigneau from the nearby Magdelene Islands to create a sound that incorporates elements of the new ways while retaining and staying true to the essential Acadian spirit of their roots. The sound is essentially Celtic but with a difference. The songs are French, sung by each band member, alone or in four part harmony. The foot percussion drives the rhythm in a fiddle tune at times yet refrains itself in the gentler musical moments. The band members are accomplished multi-instrumentalists and step-dancers incorporating the fiddle, guitar, accordion, penny-whistle, banjo, mandolin, piano, jaw-harp and bodhran into each performance. They are surely making their mark in the world today as their musical maturity comes through to captivate audiences wherever they play.
Vishtèn’s Story - A Musical Tale of Two Islands In the North Atlantic Ocean, in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence off of Canada's east coast, lays tiny Prince Edward Island and nearby, the even smaller archipelago known as the Magdalen Islands (les Îles de la Madeleine). In addition to being connected today by a ferryboat, both Islands have a shared history and a shared cultural tie that dates back several centuries. This cultural tie tells a story of early French Acadian settlers seeking a better life in the new world. In their quest to survive, many of these settlers eventually became fishermen and carried with them their musical traditions as a means of celebrating their survival. There still exists today a small enclave in Prince Edward Island where the French culture is predominant while the Magdalen Islands still remains primarily French. There has been a musical connection between these two places for centuries, traded back and forth through trips made on fishing boats in the old days and marriages among the French people which have taken place over the years. A musical marriage that embodies the spirit and the sound of this connection in the present is the contemporary Acadian traditional group Vishtèn. Today the four members who make up Vishtèn, Pastelle and Emmanuelle LeBlanc, Pascal Miousse and newest member Louis-Charles Vigneau, have become a distinctive and powerful international voice for traditional music from this part of the world. Twin sisters Pastelle and Emmanuelle LeBlanc were raised on Prince Edward Island and grew up in a household where fiddle music was commonplace. Their musical parents opened their home night after night to local and traveling fiddlers and musical jams into the wee hours were a regular occurrence. Soon the young sisters were becoming accomplished step dancers and learning the fundamentals of music on the piano. All the while they had the opportunity to listen to and experience the fiddlers and accompanists of their parent's generation. One of the best of these was Bertrand Deraspe, a fiddler from the Magdalen Islands. His style of play was (and still is) decidedly French Acadian in its syncopated lilt and use of foot percussion accompaniment. This style had a strong resemblance to other local fiddlers from their area of Prince Edward Island, fiddlers such as Louise Arsenault who was also a regular musical guest at the house. It wasn't long before the sisters realized that there were other young people in their community who had also begun to value this music. They began to jam with one another and soon formed a band of peers calling it Celtitude later changed to Vishtèn. Here is where the journey had its origin and the quest for a distinctive musical identity began. Pastelle's early piano training proved useful in making the transition to accordion and Emmanuelle soon discovered a flare for playing penny whistle and bodhràn. Their voices had also matured and the sweetness and smoothness of sibling harmonies was soon added to the mix. Growing up on the Magdalen Islands fiddler Pascal Miousse was also influenced by his father's connection to music. Pascal's father was a guitarist who loved fiddle music and the socializing that ensued whenever the fiddle came out. He inspired Pascal to take up the fiddle at the age of five. It wasn't long before he was playing for his father's friends, being awakened at three AM to play at the party after the dance, which had suddenly materialized in the kitchen of his home. Pascal developed rapidly and soon broadened his musical scope to include the guitar, mandolin and bass. With a couple of friends from the Magdalen Islands he too formed a band and toured for 10 years, playing mostly rock music with a fiddle tune thrown in once in a while, lest he not forget his roots. As that collaboration was ending, a chance encounter on the street one day with Pastelle caused him to re-enter the world of traditional music. It seemed that Vishtèn had just lost its fiddler and was in dire need of a stylistically French fiddler. Of course it definitely helped that he also sang and played everything else, and most importantly understood what the band was about thanks to his childhood roots. He and his style of play have become a musical anchor of Vishtèn's sound giving it a distinctive voice within the broader Celtic genre. Ironically, newest member Louis-Charles Vigneau also grew up on the Magdalen Islands but only knew of Pascal, met the twins for the first time in Louisiana, became a brief member of the early incarnation of the band for just 6 months and then only after an intensive 5 year personal musical journey has recently rejoined to complete the evolution of the ensemble. Like the others he too was fortunate to have music in the home. His mother is the accomplished singer/instrumentalist Carole Painchaud, who has always had a traditional band of some sort on the go. It was through her that he first met guitarist Patrice Deraspe (Bertrand Deraspe's brother) who inspired in him the desire to seek out the many possibilities on the guitar as it applies to fiddle music and traditional songs. During his 5 years away from the band he honed his craft accompanying Bertrand and others on the Magdalens and subsequently discovered his own singing voice along with many songs from his mother's extensive collected repertoire. And now four young musicians each pursuing their own version of a personal musical road guided by their own inherent traditions have collectively arrived at the same intersection at the same point in time. These musicians who are still in their early years have made a conscious choice to play and interpret in new ways the music they learned from their parents’ generation. It certainly must stem from a deep respect for and love of the sounds and rhythms forged by the musicians who have come before, inspiring them to create anew and carry this music into the future. Vishtèn has evolved into a group that will leave its own legacy and inspire musicians for generations to come.
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