Blais has performed around the world in solo, chamber, and symphonic settings. His international tours span Europe and North America, with performances at London’s Southbank Centre, Paris Petit Palais, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Moscow Gnesin Concert Hall, Mexico Parque de Chapultepec, and the Montreux Jazz Festival. From intimate recital halls to the 40,000-strong audience at the Festival International de Jazz de Montr\u00e9al, he consistently captivates listeners with his immersive, virtuosic performances.
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\nHe has collaborated with Philip Glass’ former assistant Alex Weston and completed residencies at Yann Tiersen’s studio in France and Arvo P\u00e4rt Centre in Estonia. His music also extends to film and immersive installations, earning a Cannes Soundtrack Award for Xavier Dolan’s Matthias & Maxime, and scoring Moment Factory’s immersive installation Wonderfall at Singapore’s Changi Airport. His compositions have been featured in Netflix’s The Brother Sun, a Tudor advertisement, and a Louis Vuitton holiday campaign.
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\nHis latest album, d\u00e9sert, an hour-long improvised collaboration with electronic harpist Lara Somogyi, spent 25 weeks on the Classical USA Billboard charts and earned a JUNO nomination for Instrumental Album of the Year, following aubades, which won a Libera Award (A2IM). He is currently preparing for touring his upcoming choir album, set for autumn 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jean-Michel Blais is a Montreal-based pianist, composer, and performer. His debut album, Il, was named one of Time Magazine’s Top 10 Albums of 2016, and his music has since amassed over 580 million streams worldwide. A member of the LGBTQ+ community and living with Tourette’s syndrome, he also draws on his experiences as a special needs educator to create ecstatic yet intimate compositions, blending virtuosic piano with lush orchestral and electronic textures, infused with improvisation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":124403,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_tribe_events_status":"","_tribe_events_status_reason":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"tribe_events_cat":[300],"class_list":["post-124754","tribe_events","type-tribe_events","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tribe_events_cat-show","cat_show"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsedmundston.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/124754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsedmundston.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsedmundston.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/tribe_events"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsedmundston.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/artsedmundston.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/124754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsedmundston.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsedmundston.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsedmundston.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124754"},{"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsedmundston.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events_cat?post=124754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}