Aleksi Campagne
When playing live, Aleksi Campagne floors audiences by singing while bowing his violin and commanding the stage with anything from a solo to a full four piece band configuration. His original music blends folk songwriting with an edgy, multi-layered sound resulting from his unique combination of voice, violin and looping-effect pedals. In a full-page spread in the Montreal Gazette, Brennan Kelly described him as “not just a folksinger with a guitar!
Aleksi’s debut has been a whirlwind! For his debut, Aleksi was awarded a Canadian Folk Music award for French Songwriter of the year and was named Penguin Eggs & Roots Music Canada's New Discovery of the Year! Leading up to these milestones, the year prior, Aleksi was selected as a Mariposa Folk Festival Emerging Artist to perform at the festival and his single Another Day was picked by Paul Corby as a Top Single of 2022. He was then celebrated by Tom Coxworth as one of the Top 5 Favourite acts at the Folk Alliance International Conference 2023, alongside acts like The Fretless and Mary Gautier. His single Won’t be Scared was selected as the only Canadian finalist in the Kerrville Folk Festival’s Grassy Hill New Folk Competition for Emerging Songwriters. In July 2023, Aleksi finally launched his debut album to critical acclaim. In a review in Le Devoir by Sylvain Cormier, Aleksi’s debut was compared to that of Patrick Watson and Half Moon Run. According to Roots Music Canada, “Aleksi Campagne finessed one of the most musically ambitious accomplishments of the year, an impeccable double album, one set of songs in two conjoined bilingual packages.”
Thematically, Aleksi's debut album is about all the firsts of growing up–from first loves to first moves, the first steps of your career and even first breakups. The album features 10 songs, but 20 tracks—each of the 10 songs are fully translated to offer a full English and a full french version (on two discs in one sleeve). To create the album, Aleksi received both a Canada Council Grant and a FACTOR Grant to fully fund the recording and its production. He then received an additional CALQ grant to create a video version of the album (experience a guided virtual tour of the album here). This album debuted on a Canada-wide tour, hitting festivals like the Canmore Folk Festival, Springtide Folk Festival, the Live from the Rock Festival, Bear Creek Folk Festival, and Islands Folk Festival.
Aleksi Campagne is uniquely qualified to offer a contemporary, indie-folk take on the time-honoured fiddle-singing tradition. At five years old, he began performing alongside his mother, Canadian folk icon, Connie Kaldor. At 19, Aleksi moved to Paris to study under jazz violin legend Didier Lockwood. At 21, Aleksi became the only student to have ever been accepted into the classical violin, the jazz violin and the jazz voice performance programs at McGill University. Since then, Aleksi has played some of Canada’ most beloved festivals—including the Mariposa Folk Festival, Regina Folk Festival, Canmore Folk Festival and Bear Creek Folk Festival, among others.
WEBSITE: aleksicampagne.com