ENSEMBLE TERRA NOVA is committed to raising awareness to the fascinating musical repertoire of French America—the popular music of the explorers and settlers of New France, airs from the royal courts of France, and the music of the Native Indians.
Under its former name of Stadaconé, the ensemble brought out the CD L’Aventure en Nouvelle-France in 1997. Other recordings since then and also played on period instruments, like Once in French America (the sound track and the official CD for the exhibition presented under the same name at the Canadian Museum of Civilization) have helped to spread their unique repertoire.
Since 2005, Terra Nova has prepared several productions aimed at bringing to life the fascinating journey of the founder of Quebec City, Samuel de Champlain, in particular Travelling with Samuel de Champlain (Volume 1) and Quebec Odyssey (Volume 2), official souvenirs of the 400th anniversary of Quebec City, which are the fruit of a collaborative effort between Canadian and French musicians, historians, and various institutions. Several excerpts from these CDs have recently hit the spotlight: the opening music for the grand celebration called Rencontres that took place in Quebec City on July 3, 2008, its 400th anniversary; the sound track for the exhibition Embarquez vers la Nouvelle-France! (bound for New France) presented at Tour La Chaîne in La Rochelle and other museums in France between 2008 and 2011; and parts of the music from the film In the Footsteps of Champlain (Mountain Lake PBS). These excerpts have also been played over a hundred times as part of the project From Brouage to Quebec (music-theatre) an official event of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City, as well as on a number of occasions on CBC radio and television.
At the same time as performing research and making recordings, the ensemble Terra Nova—founded by the guitarist and lutenist François Leclerc—has actively involved itself in making this repertoire available and appealing to wider audiences by giving several hundred concerts, educational workshops and presentations in Quebec, elsewhere in Canada and in Europe.
