Deux Portraits Musicaux

Michael Chapdelaine

© 2014 Candyrat Records / Michael Chapdelaine

Portrait de Femme
I have long envied painters for their ability to make visual the feelings and images that cannot be expressed verbally. I think that portraiture is one of the most powerful genres in art. Here is my first attempt at musical portrait making. This piece is a triptych (three paintings, two smaller ones surrounding a larger one) through which we see woman in three different stages of her life. First, when she is young, sweet and innocent, looking forward to life and love. Then we see her, mature, beautiful, and full of passion and power…she has her lover, her life, her work and perhaps children. Then finally, we see her when she is much older and looking back on her life. In this final image it’s clear that she is still the same young woman from the beginning, but somehow deeper and darker, colored by the years in between.

Beau Fleuve 
After being a classical guitarist for much of my life, I found myself, more and more needing to create my own music, rather than just interpreting that of others. Try as I may, I could never seem to finish a piece. Finally, while staying in a bed and breakfast in Buffalo, NY, called the Beau Fleuve, I decided one morning that I would invent, develop and finish a complete piece of my own before the day ended. So late, late that night, I played the newly born “Beau Fleuve” for Ramona and Rick, the owners of the B&B. The joy and tears in Ramona’s face told me that I had made something beautiful and my life and work have never been the same. The piece is a portrait of an artist on tour, away from home and family. The beginning of the tour is light-hearted, full of euphoria and confidence…the middle becomes more complex with feelings of loneliness and longing, then finally, near the time to go home, the joy