Brèche de minuit
Musical offerings and winter solstice celebration
21-12-24 doors 8:00PM
Hraïr Hratchian
Marie-Pierre Arthur alongside Velours Velours
Pako
Samant
Stone Bonnet Choir
On Saturday, December 21st, Brèches invites you to an evening of celebration and music in the unique atmosphere of the Chapelle de la Cité-des-Hospitalières. A moment of gentleness, beauty, and vibrancy to mark the winter solstice, come together, and unwind.
The program features musical offerings by Hraïr Hratchian, Marie-Pierre Arthur alongside Velours Velours, Pako, Samant, Stone Bonnet Choir. This original format gracefully, diversely, and poetically reimagines the art of celebrating together. In the style of Brèches, this evening combines different creative approaches that shift our bearing.
Admission is free, first come, first served
209 Avenue des Pins West
Doors open at 8 PM, show at 8:30 PM
A surprising, sparkling, and luminous moment to celebrate connection and creativity together.
Direction: Myriam Sophie Deslauriers
Lighting Design: Julie Basse
Sound Design: Jérôme Hébert
Host : François Blouin
Why this event ?
Reclaiming celebrations and traditions, creating a space to be together, to reflect, and to celebrate the beauty of life as well as our connection to everything that surrounds us.
The winter solstice marks the return of the light. What could be more precious to celebrate?
Naïri, La lamentation de la mère de Vartan
Hraïr Hratchian
Since 1995, Hraïr Hratchian has been developing an interdisciplinary practice that weaves together music, performance art, and experimental cinema. As a duduk player — the duduk being a traditional Armenian woodwind instrument — he collaborates with a range of artists and groups, including Einstürzende Neubauten, Esmerine, Beyries, and Éric Létourneau.
Since 2014, he has been creating experimental films and performing on stage in Canada, the United States, and abroad.
Camille Galdu-Drouin
Marie-Pierre Arthur
Fifteen years into her solo career, Marie-Pierre Arthur returns with Album bleu, released in fall 2024—a project shaped by time, intention, and an almost surgical sense of refinement. Her fifth full-length record stems from a patient creative process where she and her longtime collaborator and partner, François Lafontaine, explored every musical possibility. A new and transformative collaboration with Sébastien Blais Montpetit also helped elevate the album’s sound.
For the first time, Arthur opened the door to outside lyricists, allowing new voices to illuminate her work differently. Amylie and Carole Facal contributed words, while Mantisse and Rau_Ze brought a youthful, vibrant energy to the project.
Initially known as a bassist, Marie-Pierre Arthur has released four previous albums since her self-titled debut in 2009. After Aux alentours (2012), Si l’aurore (2015), and Des feux pour voir (2020), she returns with Album bleu on Simone Records—an album crafted to move us, both physically and emotionally. Arthur’s unmistakable style shines through: melodies and lyrics interlocking like pieces of a perfectly shaped puzzle.
In spring 2025, she offers Album bleu (Deluxe), giving a second life to a few key songs. With her heart wide open, she invites voices that deeply move her to revisit Respirer l’air, Paradis, and Sœurs (feat. Klô Pelgag), creating tender, harmony-rich reinterpretations. The deluxe edition also includes a new original song, Brille autant.
Jean-Charles Labarre
Pako
Pascal Ottawa, known as Pako, is a singer-songwriter from the Atikamekw community of Manawan. Set against a solid, finely crafted folk-rock sound, Pako performs the lyrics he writes in his native language, Atikamekw. His songs address powerful themes such as the importance of language, the values and history of his community, identity, the environment, human relationships, and the hope for a better life.
Pako’s words cut deep, carried by the raw, resonant voice of a bluesman who has traveled far yet always returns to draw inspiration from the Atikamekw roots of his home forest in Manawan, Québec, where he lives.
Grounded in the present, his new album Nanto looks toward what is yet to come—like a ray of sunlight piercing a clearing in a dense forest.
Samant
Samant is an emerging Montréal-based artist whose music moves between contemporary R&B, atmospheric pop, and minimalist electronic textures. With a voice that is soft, velvety, and intensely expressive, Samant creates an intimate, delicate, and resolutely modern universe where raw emotion meets a sharp sense of melody.
In 2024, Samant drew public attention with the release of “Ruff Ride,” a standout track that highlights their musical signature: a subtle blend of sensuality, vulnerability, and melancholic groove. Rooted in Montréal’s independent scene, Samant develops an intuitive artistic approach, where stripped-down production gives full space to the voice, its nuances, and introspective songwriting.
Isabelle Stachtchenko
Stone Bonnet Choir
Le Stone Bonnet Choir is a polyphonic ensemble exploring early vocal music and Canadian traditional songs, in French and in English. The group’s musical approach is as distinctive as it is accessible, showcasing the melodies and texts of carefully chosen material, compiled from rare songbooks and remembered personal histories.
The ensemble’s repertoire includes a selection of rounds and canons from the oral tradition (Musing, Ô bruit doux), Canadian traditional songs (Là-bas sur cette montagne, Ceux qui s’aiment, Do You See That There Bird) and Renaissance pieces (Quant de vous seul [Ockeghem], Come Again [Dowland]).
Eugénie Jobin, Frédérique Roy, Robin Love, Camille Deléan, Adèle Trottier-Rivard, Helena Deland
Camille Gladu-Drouin
Velours Velours
An outlet for Raphaël Pépin-Tanguay, Velours Velours has been making its mark since 2020, quickly becoming a favourite among local music lovers. The singer-songwriter released Fauve, a first EP co-produced with Philippe Brach, in 2022. With a carefree pop sound—sometimes tinged with retro accents, sometimes glowing with youthful energy—Velours Velours provides the soundtrack to both late-night Montréal wanderings and Gaspésie road trips.
Winner of the SOCAN Foundation Award in 2022, named a Radio-Canada “Artist to Watch” in 2023, and nominated as an ADISQ Revelation 2025, Velours Velours sings with power and sincerity, and loves to conceptualize immersive performances (including the cult-favourite Bals en bleus and a 24-hour show at POP Montréal).
On January 31, 2025, Velours Velours unveiled all their colours with a debut album, Quand je pleure, je suis content, produced by Christophe Charest-Latif. At once ambitious and intimate, tender and fiery, the album promises to spark conversation and touch more than a few hearts.