Claire Guimond


Claire Guimond is a Canadian flute player, Artistic Director, and founding member of Arion Baroque Orchestra.

Biography

Claire Guimond is a founding member of Arion Baroque Orchestra and has been the artistic director from 1981 to 2020. During this time, she invited world class conductors and soloists specializing in early music to lead the orchestra and share their expertise. She also collaborated with musicologists in Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom to create world premiere recordings and performances of rediscovered musical gems. She has performed with Arion, both as soloist and as an orchestra member in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. During the 2019-2020 season, she was co-artistic director of Arion with Mathieu Lussier, her successor as artistic director.
In October 2019, Claire Guimond was awarded the Betty Webster Award by Orchestras Canada for her sustained and significant contribution over a number of years to the Canadian orchestral community, with an emphasis on leadership, education, and volunteerism.
In January 2020, the Conseil Québécois de la Musique awarded her the Opus Award for Artistic Director of the year. This award marked a final high-level season and crowns more than three decades of remarkable work. The jury members made the point that with her clear artistic vision, supported by an unrelenting determination, Claire Guimond leaves an invaluable legacy to her orchestra and her team.
Many concerts and recordings in which she participated as a flautist or artistic director were given awards – Prix Opus, Juno Award, Félix Prize, International Handel Recording Prize, etc.
Claire Guimond has recorded more than 40 internationally distributed CDs, including nearly 30 with Arion Baroque Orchestra. She has recorded albums as a soloist with harpsichordists Luc Beauséjour and Gary Cooper, cellist Jaap ter Linden and violinist Monica Huggett, among others.
She has made several radio and television recordings for Canadian, British, Belgian, Irish, and Mexican stations. She has performed under some of the most distinguished conductors in baroque music, such as Ton Koopman, Masaaki Suzuki, Christophe Rousset, Andrew Parrott, Jordi Savall, Philippe Herreweghe, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Barthold Kuijken, Kent Nagano, Bruno Weil and Andrea Marcon.
Claire Guimond was artistic director of the Lamèque International Baroque Music Festival from 2000 to 2005. She is regularly invited as an adjudicator and jury member for graduate study recitals in early music as well as for music competitions. In June 2017, she was part of the jury at the International Festival of Early Music in Val de Loire under the presidency of William Christie.
Claire Guimond has had the opportunity to contribute to the development of many musicians from Canada and abroad. She taught baroque flute at McGill University from 1980 to 2019 at the Baccalaureate, Master's, and PhD level. She also taught chamber music from 1980 to 1997. She regularly gives master classes and teaches at the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute, which has been held in Toronto every summer since 2006.
In 2001 Claire Guimond founded Les productions early-music.com, a record label devoted to the repertoire of early music. She was president of the Conseil Québécois de la Musique from 1994 to 1997.

Discography (selection)

Claire Guimond recorded more than 40 CDs, amongst them, many as a soloist.
; Soloist
; Orchestra
Arion Baroque Orchestra won many awards for their concerts and recordings with Claire Guimond at their helm as Artistic Director: 9 Prix Opus, of the Conseil Québécois de la Musique, 2 Félix Awards, of ADISQ, 1 Juno Award of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, and 1 Diapason d'Or from the French music magazine Diapason.
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