Michel Tells

Michel Conte , born Seunes with Villeneuve-on-batch in Gascogne on July 17th 1932, it lived since 1955 with the Quebec where it continued a multiple career of choreographer for television and the scene, of composer-songwriter, interpreter and director as well of operas and operettas as musical comedies.

My family, originating in Gascogne - I was baptized with red wine and a clove of garlic - had a small villa a few kilometres from Bayonne and it was there that we spend the two summer months each year, in this village of Capbreton, the only paradise which I knew during my youth, paradise which quickly became the hell of my adolescence and which was perhaps at the origin of this violent desire to leave France forever.

Michel Tale - Naked… as in clouds

French course of the artist

Michel Seunes was born from a father who was member of the resistance in his corner of country during the Second world war. Michel has a sister. Family resulting from peasants. The mother of Michel, a frustrated artist of a career, incited it as of the young age to dedicate herself to the music.

Of his Gascogne native one finds it in Paris, in 1945 at the thirteen years age to study there the piano and the composition with the Conservatoire of Paris since it had the talent of it and by taste to escape his family. After an exemption it obtains at fifteen years the first part of the VAT but will not be able to finish its studies because of tuberculosis and the leukemia of which it is reached, and who obliges it to stop his musical studies after having obtained a second price of piano at seventeen years after having followed courses of orchestration with Elsa Barraine.

The wheels of the destiny carry out it towards courses of dance at Gina Bartissol to Biarritz. It enters the corps de ballet of the Opera of Strasbourg, at nineteen years, time for the season of summer to the large Theater of Vichy, in 1951. Of Vichy it migrates towards Bordeaux where it meets Annie Fiedler. first German dancer of the troop of the city. Then it is the Casino of Paris with Jeannine Monin. In a test which he writes: the Gospels, it will use this one with which it had a relation amoureuse.3

After this return to Paris, it meets Paul Vervisch, a critic of dance which makes it evolve/move in the artistic medium of the time. At the beginning of the score, it meets Cocteau after a premonitory dream during the night before. It is presented in the living room of the viscountess de Noailles or reign Léonor Fini around 1952.

It meets a Charles Trenet which encourages it in 1954. Courses of orchestration given by Maurice Thiriet follow. It crosses Raoul Jobin at the House from Quebec in Paris the same year. Another round of the Parisian living rooms where accustomed Conte, one, are put in the presence of Prince Alexandre Volynski with which it binds friendship and more. The author of Nu… as in clouds describes it like an excellent storyteller who makes him live the exile of the noble big families in Paris to flee the revolution. At “Chura”, it meets Prince Youssoupof who tells him how it was used to attract the Raspoutine monk in a trap in order to kill it.

He works at the twenty-two years age with Jean Guélis who directs the company of the Parisian Ballets and becomes the partner and the lover of Genevieve Kergrist, who had just left the Comic Opera. It is at this time that it carries out its first choreography by putting steps on this '' Adagio '' of Albinoni which has just been vacuum-cleaned.

It is the time also of its military service as meteorologist. After which it embarks on the ship Homéric at the beginning of Le Havre, in 1955.

Its name of scene

At the time of its inscription at the nineteen years age to the Ballet of Strasbourg, it adopts the name of “Tale”, a name which it borrows from the French actress Louise Conte, “boarder of the French Théâtre”, admired in Bérénice and Phèdre . He hated apparently his name which he consequently ceased carrying and was made everywhere know thereafter like “Michel Conte”, except with the army of course and later for possible reasons of royalties.

The choreographer

He unloaded with the Quebec in October 1955 at the time when was born the Télévision to which he will print his mark by signing innovating choreographies which take into account the visual vocabulary of the new medium. The cameras become partners with whom it is necessary to dance when they ignite with the red. The dancers, of which it is, are not seen more from only one point of view as to the scene but in sequence shots which should be adapted. It thus sets up traditional ballets presented by Henri Bergeron to the Hour in the Concert and is also given the responsability to compose the scenic funds of the emission with variety of Sunday at the hours of large audience. These numbers of Danse accompany a popular singer, or are assembled on line in order to be used of bonds between the segments of the magician and of the acrobat or that of known artist such Petula Clark with a French version as Downtown , at the moment when the song started to position favorably in the British prize lists. One will think of Music-Hall , an emission of Radio-Canada, diffused in black and white of 1955 to 1960 and animated by Michelle Tisseyre and with Pleins Fires , a variety programme animated by Monique Leyrac whose diffusion begins in October 1964. It choreography several ballets presented on television or written music which will be used by the large Canadian troops of ballet. It will put in scene several operas, operettas and musical comedies, as well on television as on the boards.

Michel Conte is author of ballet music of which One and one make two created by the Royal Ballet of Winnipeg in 1961 and Cantique of the canticles choreography by Fernand Nault of the Grands Canadian Ballets and created at the time of the “Festival Expo-Theater” in 1974. Among his innumerable choreographic creations for television, one can quote the Carry-dream of Clermont Pépin in 1958.

The choreographer and dancer thus become in a few years a reference impossible to circumvent of Canadian television as regards dance and it directly influences the medium apart from television. Madam Chiriaeff, the founder of GBC, worked at the same time as him on television of State and the core of the troop to which it showed the day was present within the group of ballet dancers of the institution.

The troop of the variety programmes of the TV of State made as for it in the ballet-jazz to which Conte had been passed very close to at the time of a short preliminary passage in the troop of one of the studios of dance newyorkais. In short but sufficient to note the constraints, the methods of production and the rate/rhythm of the TV on line, such as it was practiced in the Fifties, in black and white, under lightings exténuants but with multiple cameras allowing as much from point of view and a rate/rhythm of assembly which can be modulated directly under the eyes of the televiewer. Its experiment with the Casino of Paris was used it also well in this kind as service. Services in justaucorps and high-of-fit some adjusted which are transfered at the beginning quasi struck of episcopal interdict, following unquestionable protests, many and vehement on behalf of a large audience little accustomed to the ballet.

Mandate of the Council of Arts

In 1966 it is in six months European round in the large houses of opera in the name of the Conseil of Arts of Canada, to study the setting in scene particular there to this art and its techniques of production.

The composer-songwriter

During years 1960, he will undertake a career of composer-songwriter and will consequently be interpreted inter alia by Renee Claude (Shippagan, Viens to make a turn at home), Monique Leyrac, Lucille Dumont or Julie Arel (Kamouraska) and others then. Julie Arel saw herself decreeing the first price with the Festival of Athens of the song with Kamouraska in 1973.

The interpreter

In 1966, it records Michel Conte sings Conte , under Columbia label. Certain songs of the album will be taken again still today by other interpreters, as the singer of jazz Sonia Johnson did it in 2005.

The disc Michel Conte sings a history of love is recorded in Paris, under Columbia label, in 1967.

See also the discography of Michel Tells.

Musical tragedy

In 1968, Michel Conte writes and puts in scene Monica the grapeshot , a Musical comedy based on facts lived, which is worth to him, like with the artist holding the role titrates, of the contentions with the family of criminal deceased which are solved by a profit-sharing of the relationship in the fruits of the spectacle.

Work tells in a fictionalized way the tumultuous life of Monica Proietti, known as “Monica the grapeshot”, criminal notorious braqueuse of banks which prevails in Montreal at the end of the the Fifties and during the the Sixties and culminates on its fine tragedy in 1967, year of the World Fair of Montreal, at the time of the steering missed by a bank where it is cut down by balls.

we Like the ones the others , the spectacle

With the beginning of the year 1970, following the recording on disc of we Like the ones the others , the artist achieves a promotional round with four musicians and an engineering team of lighting, wiring for sound and transport. This radiant round, with return to Montreal after each spectacle has this of private individual whom it is carried out in church S of Quebec, those whose Curé S had the audacity to accommodate it. The songs of this recital indeed carry the message evangelic of the Christians as seen by the author. The spectacle is defended by a member of the archbishop's palace of Montreal, Jean-Guy Dubuc. Certain priests straightforwardly refused the presentation of the spectacle, considering “its diabolic content” according to them, others accommodated it with enthusiasm. Jesus east depicts there like a revolutionary, bearded motorcyclist and contemporary who clamp high and strong his message of altruistic love. The author, through the various songs, takes again parabolas, adapts certain accounts and leads to an apotheosis which delivers the fundamental message of the prophet. Michel Conte was not yet rosicrucian.

It was the period of the caftan S of the artist and the caftans in general. It is presented in the Holy of Holies of the churches in behaviors of means-Eastern inspiration drawn by a dressmaker montréalais Jacques de Montjoye, an Indian sari or a cream-coloured white costume. One had not warned besides Conte which white clothing was not setting for the recording of an emission of promotion put out of box at the international Center of the Radiotelevision and which turned almost to the disaster. The second part of the recording proceeded without hitch, the purple costume out of silk with strong reflections and gilded facings posing of another problem only one adjustment of lighting.

This exhausting turned, over one two years period, the conduit as well with Gaspé as with Jonquière, in Mauricie, in Laurentides or in Estrie, with Three-Rivers or Montreal and its crown and even Paris. The spectacle is a mitigated success, is been sulky by the critic in Quebec and transfers with the riots in Paris. The French round envisaged in area must be cancelled after a first spectacle with the church Saint-Roch which causes violent reactions.

It is known that of return to Montreal following this failure, it had a school of dance with a associate, Tom Scott, “the Studio of body expression”, in a room lent by the priest of the church Saint-Jacob, school who will move then on the street Marianne, in an unused church. At this point in time Michel Conte becomes member of the Rosicrucian brotherhood and will be it during 10 years.

Film music

Michel Tells sign the music of films of the realizer Jean-Claude Lord, the Doves in 1972 and Bingo in 1974. The director of Évangéline in search , Ginette Pilgrim, will convince it on her return of Tenerife into 1996 to carry out the musical screen of this film produced by ONF.

children of the sky , the musical comedy

It prepares then the children of the sky , a Musical comedy which it will present in 1977, a spectacle underlined by the simultaneous launching of a analogical disc London Records, on which one finds the Source Runs , a song which is business success and whose partition appears the same year.

Publications

In 1980, Michel Conte makes his coming out before that does not become the fashion, by publishing Nu… as in clouds , after the publication the previous year of its first work, the Price of the possessions .

After 1980

In 1981 it kills Michel Conte and becomes “Melki”, then moves with Tenerife, in the the Canaries. It will record there in 1982 a piano in love , a disc of “ easy listening music ” under label UFM and distributed by Trans-Canada. Covering the character of Melki, it will animate television programs and radio centered on the alternative medicines and the new therapies. During this stay of about fifteen years in the shone upon Spanish islands and far from the cold winter, it is initiated with the Yoga, the Tai-chi and gives conferences on the crowned dance, the “musicosophie”, the harmonization of energies female and male.

It returns to Montreal in 1996. It prepares a spectacle which it delivers in November 1997 to the workshop the Variation, a recital that it will take again in April 1998 with the theater workshop of the PdA.

In 1998, Like a great cry of love appears: an account enters the heart and the heart , at the same time in the form of novel, of cassette and numerical disc, in its sung version.

In 2001, the partition of Évangéline reappears, written several years before and which was interpreted by Isabelle Pierre, Marie-Jo Thério, Lyne Lapierre and, more recently, Marie Williams. The song writer and performer Michel Conte was inspired in 1971 by the poem '' Evangeline, has off Bruises Acadie '' of the author étatsunien Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1847), to write this song on the fictitious heroin of Acadian, Évangéline and his beautiful Gabriel lover. It is Isabelle Pierre who will record it for the first time in 1971 on her album entitled Heureuse . (To listen to an extract of the song).

October 2006, at the worthy age of seventy-four years, it receives SOCAN a plate recalling the first position of one of its songs to various prize lists during the past year. October 28th, at the time of the Official reception of the ADISQ, its song “Evangéline” gains the price of the song of the year. On this occasion, the veteran Michel Conte declared himself “moved to receive” a price for this song “Évangéline, written forty years ago. ”, while continuing that it was “a miracle and a gift. ”

Discography

Michel Conte sings Conte , Columbia, Paris, 1966.
Michel Conte sings a history of love , Columbia, Paris, 1967.
Monica the grapeshot , Polydor, Montreal, 1968.
Aimons us the ones the others , Polydor, Montreal, 1969.
the children of the sky , London Records off Canada, Mont Saint-Hilaire, 1977.
a Piano in Love, has Piano in Coils, a Piano Enamorado , under the name of Melki, UFM, Montreal, 1981.
Like a great cry of love , Guzzi Editions, Laval, 1998.

detailed Titers of the albums

MICHEL TALE SINGS CONTE
Ave Maria - Ah! Shit then - good friends - Good evening Madam - In major C - And bye bye - great love - - I remember - Jean Sebastien should not be loved - All but not that - One year today
MICHEL TALE SINGS a HISTORY D' soft AMOUR
Agapi - To spend the night with you - Since I know you - Guard well my heart - I do not leave - I do not know why I love you - For that which I know - I want to love you a long time - the day when you will come - One hour only
MONICA MITRAILLE
Ouverture - Song for the mama - Lastly, be to you there - But what does one have? - Friendship - Monica the grapeshot - is, take me to You there - the kik - I have them all - Freight, Net, dryness - Monica-Death of Monica - Monica died
LIKE us the ONES AUTRES
Prolog - In this time - the pinks of Marie-madeleine - It returned - Pierre - the dove and the snake - I will return to speak about love - we Like the ones the others
the CHILDREN OF CIEL
Le signs times - the children of the sky - One will balance oneself - One cannot more I love you say - the good and evil - the country of which I am - children of the year 2000 - Take to me in your arms - As an ocean - the source runs
a PIANO IN AMOUR
Je am your friend - Eternally - a piano in love - the mirror under the rain - Once again - Very close to you - Between time and eternity - the great voyage
AS a GREAT CRY D' AMOUR
Tenerife - to awake - the day when you will come - the love from does not go away - good friends - the evil of living - the eternal house - Small Michel - a song, it is simple - Canticle of the canticles - Not, I do not love you I love you… - the guy of the sights - Évangéline - It is the love

Ballet music and choreography

Music

One and one make two , created by “Montreal Theater Ballet”, a company transitory, and taken again by the Royal Ballet of Winnipeg in 1961. With the creation of work, Conte was at the same time author of the music, choreographer and first dancer of the young company of dance which did not become old.
Canticle of the canticles , Great Canadian Ballets, Fernand Nault, 1974.

Choreography

Adagio , one not-of-two with Genevieve Kergrist on the famous '' Adagio '' of Albinoni, at the twenty-two years age, Paris, 1954.
the Carry-dream , ballet written for television by Clermont Pip and diffused with the Hour in the concert , Radio-Canada, 1958.
Points on ice , for GBC on airs of Calixa Lavallée, 1967.
the emissions with a danced segment, with the French and English networks of Radio-Canada, often see its name ravelling with the credits between 1955 and 1965.

Songs

Certain titles which it recorded were taken again by other interpreters. Some were written following the demand of an artist or for thinking of a singer in particular. The majority of the interpreters of Michel Conte are women.

The table which follows is not exhaustive. † Year of creation or recording of the chanson

Bibliography of Michel Tells

the price of the possessions , Editions of Mortagne, Naked Boucherville, 1979.
… as in clouds , Editions of Mortagne, Boucherville, 1980.
Like a great cry of love: an account enters the heart and the heart with Michel Conte and Melki ,
Éditions Guzzi, Holy-Dorothée (Laval), 1998.
Évangéline, or, love in exile: songs and accounts , Editions VLB, Montreal, 2007.

Random links:

Breakdowns (Meurthe-et-Moselle) | Festival of Angouleme 1997 | Olympic Sporting Inhabitant of Avignon XIII | Eta Ophiuchi