Serge Lacasse

In addition to being a university professor in musicology (see blelow), Serge Lacasse (aka Prof. Lacasse) has been a professional producer, arranger, songwriter and musician for many years in the Canadian music industry. Not only does he have built a nice catalogue of instrumental and vocal pieces of music (e.g. for museum exhibitions, advertising, etc.), he has also collaborated as producer/songwriter/musician with artists signed to majors and national labels in Canada (Mitsou, Lynda Lemay, Tanya Tagaq, Descars, Héra Ménard, Nathalie Gauthier, Paule-Andrée Cassidy, etc.). He recently produced two albums of piano music by Quebec artist Marc-André Pépin, including Tempus fugit nominated for “Best Instrumental album of the Year” at the 2018 ADISQ Gala. Similarly, Héra Ménard’s eponym album, also produced by Lacasse, was acclaimed as “Discovery of the Year” and nominated in the “Singer-songwriter” category at the Gala Country 2018. Prof. Lacasse is a multi-instrumentalist: not only does he play the piano, but he is also an accomplished drummer and guitarist. He has been writing piano music since his early teens but only recently decided to propose it to the world. His first album, entitled Piano Evocations, features 13 intimate pieces exploring a variety of emotions in the post-classical style. Since its launch in March 2019 the album has accumulated around 200,000 streams on Spotify alone. Piano Evocations also got great reviews in both specialized magazines (e.g. Fanfare Magazine, November/December 2019) and blogs devoted to the piano. We can also hear Piano Evocations on many classical radio stations around the world. As its title suggests, his latest EP, Winter Preludes, was inspired by the ambience and surroundings of the Quebec Winter season. The sheet music for both of these projects is available on Amazon. As his artist name suggests, Serge "Prof." Lacasse is also Professor of Musicology, specializing in popular music, at the Faculty of Music, Université Laval in Quebec City, Canada. He heads the Laboratoire audionumérique de recherche et de création (larc.oicrm.org). Favoring an interdisciplinary approach, his research and research-creation projects mostly deal with the study and practice of recorded popular music and the singing voice. In addition to multiple chapters, articles and conference papers, he co-authored (with Sophie Stévance) Research-Creation in Music and the Arts: Towards a Collaborative Interdiscipline (Routledge, 2018) and Les enjeux de la recherche-création en musique (PUL, 2013); he also co-edited Quand la musique prend corps (PUM, 2014) with Monique Desroches and Sophie Stévance, as well as the second tome of The Art of Record Production (Routledge, 2020) with Simon Zagorski-Thomas, Katia Isakoff and Sophie Stévance.