Bruno Pelletier- Golden Voice of Québec

Bruno Pelletier

The Golden Voice of Québec

Known for years as ‘The Golden Voice of Québec,’ Bruno Pelletier has made a huge name for himself since his first album release in 1992. Yet his career didn’t begin there. In 1989, Bruno started performing as lead singer in his band named Pëll (derived from his last name, Pelletier). The more he sang, the more people recognized the richness and pureness of Bruno’s voice, making himself known to famous composers such as Luc Plamondon.

1992 stuck out as an important year for Bruno Pelletier when Luc Plamondon and Michel Berger offered Bruno a role in a play called, Le legende de Jimmy, which helped his sales from his premiere album, ‘Bruno Pelletier’.

Two years afterwards, Bruno then appeared in yet another production by Luc Plamondon, in which he took on the role as Johnny Rockfort in ‘Starmania’. A year later in ’95, Bruno decided to release his second album, ‘Défaire l’amour.’

It wasn’t until 1997 however, that Bruno especially caught the public’s eye with his third  album, ‘Miserere,’ where he had sung not a French song, but an Italian piece, (also named after the album), ‘Miserere,’ a song which proved the golden voice Bruno carried. What also came along in Bruno’s career path in 1997 was a small role in television series called ‘Omerta 2’ where he was instantly recognized.

His role on ‘Omerta’ did not last very long, but that did not matter much as the next role-offer as the poet, Gringoire, in Notre-Dame de Paris, written also by Luc Plamondon and Richard Cocciante at ‘Le Palais des Congres de Paris,’ was another success. Also, in ’99, Bruno felt the need to release yet another album, ‘D’autres rives,’ on top of his role in Notre-Dame. Gringoire easily became Bruno’s most famous role to date, for in 2000, NDDP (Notre-Dame de Paris) went Anglophone to London where he took upon the English role as Gringoire.

Bruno Pelletier as Gringoire in NDDP.

As NDDP came to an end, Bruno’s attention focused once again on his album-making career, taking a break from the stage. In 2001, his first Live album, ‘Sur Scène’ came out, once again showing off the amazing talent this Québecois star possessed.

Always performing more pop-world type music, Bruno Pelletier took on a bit more rock-edged type of music for his 2002 release of ‘Un Monde à l’envers.’ Near the end of 2002, Bruno Pelletier took yet another drastic change in styles of music and worked with OSM (the Orchestra Symphony of Montréal) to make his first ever Christmas album, Concert de Noël; an album that completely and utterly left listeners in awe when the richness of Pelletier’s classical voice stood out from well-known classics such as ‘Ave Maria,’ ‘Joyeux Noël,’ and even from his 1997 hit, ‘Miserere.’

Taking a small break after his Christmas album, Bruno returned on stage once more in the role of Dracula. ‘Dracula- Entre l’amour et la mort,’ created in 2005 by Bruno himself, with the help of song writer Roger Tabra, composer Simon Leclerc (who also helped out with l’OSM), and direction from Richard Ouzounian, was an immediate hit. Other well-known pop/rock stars such as Andrée Watters, Daniel Boucher, Sylvain Cossette, and Gabrielle Destroismaisons were also involved in the production. The show ran for a year.

Then in 2008, Bruno and the cast of Dracula performed in Lyon, France for a month, leaving quite enough time for Bruno to focus on his jazz album, ‘Bruno Pelletier et le Groszorchestre.’ Some songs on this album were in fact re-done by Bruno from jazz hit-artists Billy Joel such as ‘Just the Way You Are,’ and Sting’s ‘Roxanne,’ are included in the CD, as well as some French songs that were freshly composed by Bruno himself, or some old songs of his that were recreated to give a more jazz feeling to fit the album. A live DVD was just released of ‘Groszorchestre,’ where Bruno is still performing these songs today.

To hear a clip from Bruno’s ‘Groszorchestre, here is the live performance of, ‘Just the Way You Are.’ and one of the most famous songs from Notre Dame, ‘Le Temps des Cathedrals.’

Just the Way You Are

Le Temps des Cathedrals (The Time of the Cathedrals)

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