Emile Bénoit
Louis Leger
Emile Josheph Bénoit was born March 24th, 1913 at Black Duck Rock, Port au Port Peninsula in Newfoundland and died September 3rd, 1992. He was a fiddler, composer and storyteller, as well as a fisherman, logger, carpenter and blacksmith. He described his fiddle style as: "a little bit of Scots, a little bit of Irish, a little bit of Québécois, a little bit of French - all mixed together". He was a prolific composer of tunes, almost two hundred composed around dreams or things that he had seen. He made appearances at festivals throughout Canada, the USA, and Europe and there are three albums of his tunes: Emile's Dream (1979), It Comes From the Heart (1982) and Vive la Rose (1992). Emile's version of the song Viva la Rose was the basis of an animated short by Bruse Alcock from the National Film Board of Canada.
Émile Bénoît, conteur, folkloriste et violoneux est né la 24 mars 1913 à l'Anse-à-Canards, Terre-Neuve. Son père était d'origine française et sa mère était d'origine acadienne de Chéticamp. Il devint pêcheur à 12 ans et continua le métier de pêcheur le rest de sa vie. Il était également charpentier et forgeron et avait des connaissances en médecine. Ce n'est qu'à l'age de 60 ans qu'il se consacra entièrement à la musique et remporta de nombreux prix et participa à de nombreux festivals. Il était également compositeur avec plus de 200 mélodies à son compte. Il enregistra trois disques: Émile's Drean en 1979, Ça vient du Tchoeur en1982 et Vive la Rose en 1992.
For the notation for almost all of the tunes he wrote, the best source is the Kelly Russell collection. Another source of information is the article by Getty Nygaard King in the Canadian Encyclopedia.
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