Louise Gauthier
Louise Gauthier is an emerging francophone singer-songwriter. She has been writing songs for years, and more recently, composing on the guitar and piano to collaborate with incredible musicians who accompany her on stage. She received the 2018 & 2020 Newfoundland Arts & Letters award for her original compositions. Louise’s debut album, Petit Cœur, was nominated for the Music NL Francophone Album of the Year 2023. Her charismatic voice gently portrays vulnerability and provokes reflections on love, loss and joy.
Louise’s story
My music story took flight after receiving the 2018 & 2020 NL Arts & Letters awards for my original compositions entitled Petit Coeur & Il S’en Va. The latter of the two was written on a plane on the way to say a last goodbye to beloved Papa. These awards fueled the courage I needed to dream of a career in music. This musical journey continued with a virtual introduction to Montreal-based musician and composer, Lucie Cauchon in 2021. Together, we concocted arrangements for two new songs, Ma Petite Fleur and Éléonore, which fused an immediate and natural creative connection between us. Some cool coincidences made it feel like a little destiny was at play. After my two visits to Lucie’s studio in Montreal, Lucie, in turn, travelled to Corner Brook to record the album in the summer of 2022. This project represents a collaboration between two provinces, bringing together musicians from Newfoundland and Quebec, with Lucie Cauchon and Phil Churchill of The Once as co-producers, all recorded and mixed at Ginger Beard Studio in Corner Brook, Newfoundland with some tracks recorded at Studio le Hublot in Montreal. My debut album, Petit Cœur, was nominated for the Music NL Francophone Album of the Year 2023.
My music is influenced by songs from Acadian heritage on my mother’s side of the family, the country music that dominated my childhood home, as well as my love for “La Chanson Française”. My music evokes the romantic, melancholy atmosphere of Edith Piaf’s time, a time of cabaret and torch, with a poetic storytelling style that captures personal moments, some of great impact and some that draw on the long moments of my everyday life, that often return to love.
I am preparing a first tour of the album, which will take me to my Ontario roots, Quebec, and the Atlantic Provinces with a dream to bring my songs to a European audience in the future!
