MySpace a place for friends

Website: http://www.alexbellegarde.com

A prominent artist on the Quebec scene, bassist Alex Bellegarde is a versatile and energetic player with a broad imagination. Constantly finding new types of projects with which to extend his jazz vocabulary, he collaborates with a wide range of musicians, poets, actors and visual artists and creates music drawn from a wealth of sources. His compositions, along with a great performance by his quartet, merited the coveted General Motors Grand Jazz Award at the 26th edition of the Montreal Jazz Festival.

A busy player on Montreal’s effervescent jazz scene, Alex Bellegarde heads a weekly jam session and plays Latin bass with many Montreal-based Cuban musicians: Jesus Alejandro 'El Nino', Yoël Diaz Y Su Team Timba and Asere, as well as legendary guest artists on visit from Cuba and the US, such as vocalist Chiquitin and percussionist Candido Camero.

He has also composed music for several Montreal theatre productions: Cornemuse-Théàtre d'Aujourd’hui (in collaboration with Philippe Brault), Emmanuelle Blanche-Centre d’Essai, La Tête Dans Les Nuages-Salle Fred Barry and more recently Hamlet Machine-Place des Arts. Multidisciplinary events include Jazz & Poetry, Espace Olibrius (multimedia), Émergence Énergie, Live Painting & Music, to name just a few.

Throughout high school in Québec’s Eastern townships, he played with the award winning Ensemble Davignon and Massey Vanier Band. Influenced greatly by bassist, the late Skip Bey, he has gone on to play in many special events such as the Musicians' Solidarity Show, Évidemment Jazz, L'Off Festival de Jazz, all highly representative of the Montreal jazz scene and in clubs and festivals in Canada and the US.