Alouest: a newer take on traditional music. | Photo courtesy of Alouest

The 27th annual Festival du Bois will be hosted by the francophone Coquitlam community of Maillardville. The festival seeks to share and celebrate French Canadian arts and culture through food, visual arts, and musical talents, including Maillardville-based Alouest. Festivalgoers can enjoy the event from Mar. 4–6.

“We identify ourselves as the Maillardville band wherever we perform and no one has argued otherwise yet,” says Alouest’s vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Denis Leclerc.

Maillardville’s music festival

Festival du Bois (which translates as “Festival of Wood” or “Festival of the Woods”) celebrates the century or so of Maillardville’s heritage by sharing various forms of French Canadian and Maillardville-based arts.

Along with Alouest, who are returning once again for the festival, other folk-influenced groups such as Vazzy, MAZ, and Le Bruit Court dans la Ville, are set to perform, as well as more drum-based music from artists such as Jean Pierre Makosso and Yoro Noukoussi.

Though the festival focuses on French music, the visual arts and food are also prominent parts of the festival in its goal of sharing Maillardville’s francophone culture.

Alouest: francophone music and heritage

Ladling hot tire (maple toffee) on snow. | Photo courtesy of Festival du Bois

Indeed, it is that heritage that Alouest seeks to celebrate with music, namely through a blend of traditional French folk, country, and bluegrass.

Alouest (a pun on both “Alouette,” the name of a popular French Canadian children’s song, and “À l’ouest” which translates to “To the West”), having formed a few years ago, has taken on the task of sharing traditional francophone music while also experimenting and incorporating their own style, says Denis Leclerc, long-time band member.

“Our band’s musical “m.o.,” is to re-interpret well-known francophone songs from various eras and regions of Canada from a West Coast perspective. We do not tamper with centuries-old lyrics and melodies but collectively experiment within the musical expression and instrumentation,” says Leclerc.

In pursuing this goal of sharing tradition while also experimenting musically, instrumentation and arrangement proves an important part of the band’s sound, but more so in its consistency than its variation.

Leclerc himself sings lead and backup vocals, and plays fiddle, mandolin, banjo, the penny whistle, and harmonica. While other band members know many of these instruments as well, other tools within the band’s repertoire include guitar, snare, hi-hat, various folk percussion, and “podorythmie,” the often tricky but crucial set of percussive foot-tapping techniques that are very characteristic of francophone folk music.

“The arrangement comes out as neo-traditional,” says Leclerc. “Our original songs are all developed within that same musical character.”

The most notable consistency of songs is that all four members of the band, including Leclerc, take some role in singing; however, the role of lead vocals may still change from song to song. That said, Leclerc affirms the importance of backup vocals in a lot of traditional francophone music.

“We acknowledge Dan Legal as our lead vocalist though others sing lead occasionally. We regard our backup vocals just as highly as lead because the backbone of “la bonne chanson” is “les réponses; la repetition,” notes Leclerc.

Keeping the authenticity of traditional French Canadian culture through music doesn’t seem limiting, however, as the band members grow individually as artists and cohesively as a band with a distinct voice and sound.

“We’ve most definitely grown; I think we all agree. Whatever discipline, mindset, musical skill or paradigm we each came into this with had to be suspended at first, as we revisited the traditions of the music, but gradually, those influences crept into the crafting phase.”

Alouest has a debut album in the works, but, for now they focus on live performances to share their heritage and sound.

For more information on Alouest and the Festival du Bois, visit www.festivaldubois.ca.