Francesca Blanchard, a singer and songwriter based in Vermont whose January concert here was cancelled by a snowstorm, will finally make her Eastern Shore debut at The Mainstay in Rock Hall, MD on Saturday April 9 at 8:00 p.m. Admission is $20. For information and reservations call 410-639-9133. Information is also available at the Mainstay’s website https://www.mainstayrockhall.org.
Francesca Blanchard is a young French-American singer and songwriter whose songs are based on her experiences growing up around the world. At 23, she has been called a “a profound, mature talent.” (Seven Days- Burlington VT).
Born and raised in France, she traveled the globe with her family before settling in the small Vermont town of Charlotte near the shores of Lake Champlain. Her intimate music, sung in French and English, reflects on her travels, both physical and emotional, and shows influences ranging from Norah Jones and Carla Bruni to Eva Cassidy and Francoise Hardy.
At The Mainstay, her fine vocals and guitar will be augmented by band members on keyboard, bass and drum.
Blanchard’s lyrics and melodies are inspired by her bilingual and multicultural upbringing. Born in the south of France where her family resided until she was ten, she recalls her Mediterranean childhood as one of bare feet on terra cotta tiles, fuchsia sunsets, and mistral breezes. Her song “La vie douce (the sweet life)” aptly describes the rhythm and rhyme of those early years, where hours spent daydreaming and gazing off at the white-capped waves further nourished a love of wild, open spaces and the solitary peace of simple living in the heart of a family that was anything but conventional.
Because her parents worked for international humanitarian agencies worldwide, Blanchard lived and went to school in Ethiopia and Burundi and journeyed with her family to more than 30 off-the-beaten-path countries such as South Korea, Mauritania, Rwanda, Kenya, Egypt, Thailand, Australia, Honduras, Tanzania, Guatemala and India. She spent many of her teen years in Vermont before earning a BFA in Theatre Arts from Boston University.
Throughout her youth she learned to travel light, invite surprises and to rely upon an open mind and a listening heart as she encountered life around the world. Growing up in a household with a French father, an American mother, and adopted siblings from Ethiopia and Guatemala, her own family reflected a spirit where the sense of “belonging” comes not from a particular place or heritage but from the bonds of being passengers on the same metaphorical ship. This, she says, is why she sings: to nourish these bonds.
Music was an important part of that family life. Vivaldi’s “Concerto for Guitar and Mandolin” was playing in the delivery room where she was born and she was raised to a wide array of voices in recordings, a musical backdrop that included Tracy Chapman, Eva Cassidy, Diana Krall, Norah Jones, Carla Bruni, Francoise Hardy, Edith Piaf, Francis Cabrel, Alain Souchon, Aaron Neville, Stevie Wonder, I Muvrini, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Simon & Garfunkel, Virginia Rodriguez, Andrea Bocelli, Khaled… an eclectic assortment of styles, sounds and languages, all extremely vocally expressive and rich in musicality.
Blanchard took piano lessons and sang in choirs, but it wasn’t until she moved to the United States in 2002 that she started taking guitar lessons. She writes in both French and English, choosing whichever language best fits the mood and poetry of the song.
In her teens, aided by Vermont singer-songwriter and producer Gregory Douglass, she recorded her first 6-track EP, “Songs on an Ovation,” in 2011 and began selling the collection of original compositions and well-chosen covers in French and English to friends, family and neighbors. The EP soon earned her local acclaim, leading the Burlington, Vermont weekly, Seven Days, to rave “Barely out of high school, the local singer-songwriter already displays guile and artistic sensitivity that would be the envy of many tunesmiths twice her age — and, for that matter, music critics of a similarly mature vintage. Her debut EP is quietly and profoundly stunning. It is a humble ode to love, heartbreak and home that says more about all three topics in the span of 17 minutes than some songwriters do over entire careers.”
In recent years she has begun venturing out on the world stage, opening for Joan Armatrading, Suzanne Vega, The Parkington Sisters, Caravan Palace, and others. She performed at the prestigious FrancoFolies Festival of Montreal in 2013 and 2015. Her rendition of the classic French ballad “Sous Le Ciel de Paris” was featured on the Putumayo collection “Vintage France” and her gentle cover of the children’s song “Petit Papa Noel” is on Putumayo’s “French Christmas” collection.
In the summer of 2014, Blanchard began work on her debut full-length album, “deux visions.” After a successful Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign that raised nearly $30,000, Montreal producer Chris Velan (Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars) assembled a lineup of top local musicians at Lane Gibson studios in Charlotte, Vermont to record 12 original songs – six in French, six in English. Acclaimed producer Jean Massicotte (Lhasa, Patrick Watson, Arthur H, Jorane) mixed the album in Montreal at Masterkut Studios, and the album was mastered at world-renowned Metropolis Studios in London.
The all-star contributions to the album continued with the graphic design, which was overseen by the trend-setting Burlington, VT design studio Solidarity of Unbridled Labour. The result is a true labor of love, supported by a community of friends, fans and family who are united in the belief that Blanchard’s talent deserves to be discovered by the world. “Deux visions” was released in the US & Canada in October 2015 by the world music label, Cumbancha.
In a review in Jazz Weekly, George W. Harris said, “Singer-songwriter Francesca Blanchard sounds like a throwback to the old days of folk singers that came from Laurel Canyon in the 70s. This album has her singing in English and French, with acoustic and electric guitar, with a voice that has a hint of early Joni Mitchell and a feel of Neil Young.”
This concert was the first booking for The Mainstay’s new Executive Director, Rory Trainor, who actually did the work arranging for the concert in the late fall before he officially started work at the Mainstay. When the snowstorm disrupted those plans he was pleased to able to work with Blanchard’s management to find another date.
The Mainstay (Home of Musical Magic) is the friendly informal storefront performing arts center on Rock Hall’s old time Main Street.
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