Olivier Demers, fiddler, foot-stomper and founding member of French-Canadian folk band Le Vent du Nord, likes nothing more than fossicking for little-known songs, dusting them off and presenting them to an audience perhaps unfamiliar with the melting pot of Quebec culture.
A guest at the forthcoming Otago Festival of the Arts, Le Vent du Nord has amassed more than 1000 performances since Demers met hurdy-gurdy* player Nicolas Boulerice when a fire alarm in 2002 brought the musicians out of their practice rooms at a Montreal music school.
Together with Simon Beaudry, a multi-instrumentalist from Quebec, and accordionist Rejean Brunet, who hails from a small town near the Canada-United States border, the members of Le Vent du Nord have - deliberately, zealously even - become ambassadors of Francophone music.
Although they have also written plenty of original compositions, songs faithful to the spirit of the older material, the band often takes tunes directly from Quebec's traditional folk repertoire, scouring archives, tracking down traditional performers or tracing songs back to their sources, a process that has included being contacted by families who believe they have a musical heirloom worth airing.
On the phone from his Montreal home, Demers likens his work to that of an ethno-musicologist.
"It is a very interesting thing to do. We keep some of those jewels of our history alive.
"Once in a while, we find one that hasn't been recorded, but perhaps there is some old guy somewhere who still sings this song, you know?
It is very touching when this happens."
Others have seen the merit of Le Vent du Nord's mission.
The band has earned critical acclaim across Europe and North America and won several prestigious awards, including two Junos (Canada's version of the Grammys), a Canadian Folk Music Award and an Artist of the Year award at the North American Folk Alliance Annual Gala.
"You know, it is always flattering to have a trophy, but it is not the reason why we do this," Demers says.
"It is nice to feel like our colleagues, our musical family, believe in what we do.
"It doesn't change everything, but it helps our agents when they try to approach a promoter to have us play in, say, New Zealand. It is a good calling card."
To celebrate its 10th anniversary, Le Vent du Nord released its seventh album, Tromper le temps, earlier this year, the release a typical mix of the traditional and the original.
"The songs cover subjects that, though they might have been told 200 or 300 years ago, are still very relevant," Demers says. "They talk of love from a certain angle, lust, dedication, the country, our origins ...
"We like to keep the version as close as possible to the original, but we are also not afraid to also put a little bit of modernity to it. We feel really connected to the present, even if some of the songs are old."
Demers, who also performs with Cirque de Soleil when not playing fiddle and foot-tapping (his efforts are amplified to augment Le Vent du Nord's rhythm), has a background in chamber music, dabbled in rock and jazz but has focused on traditional Quebecois music for the past 18 years.
"Some of the guys grew up in families who had accordion players, fiddles and dancers. I'm the only one who just picked up this music as a teenager.
"I fell in love with it and decided to dedicate my life to it.
"For us, we put an emphasis on the lyrics. One aspect of this tradition is about being funny and entertaining, without being particularly deep.
"But we want to tell stories that convey something to an audience. If they want to dig deeper they will find other degrees of meaning."
It might investigate a particular niche of folk music, but Le Vent du Nord also attempts to connect to other worlds. The group has collaborated with a diverse range of musicians, from Irish outfit The Chieftains to ensembles whose influences straddle Europe and the Americas.
The group has even branched out into classical music. An orchestral rendering of its repertoire, titled Le Vent du Nord Symphonique, has been presented as part of two different concerts series with the Portland Symphony Orchestra and Quebec Symphony Orchestra.
"We are working on a new symphonic show," Demers enthuses. "There are about 20 songs covering all our albums. It is a nice experience to connect folk music, music of the people, with great classical music.
"We do one of these concerts per year. It is a big investment for the symphony orchestras in terms of publicity. It is good to reappropriate classical music, because it used to be the music of the ruling classes."
Demers suggests folk music is a good antidote to modern life.
"I believe people are a bit lost in this fast life, all this technology. Things last a month before another hip thing comes along.
"So people are looking to go back to other values, things that have more resonance. It might be a guitar, a violin, or a very natural-sounding voice instead of auto-tune or all those effects we have in pop music.
"For us, there is no attempt to polish it too much. It's a case of a few guys coming together to play music and interact with the audience. We try to incorporate very rhythmic, very 'alive' songs, with laments and instrumentals as well as a cappella songs.
"We want people to dive into another culture."
* A hurdy-gurdy is a stringed instrument on which the strings are rubbed by a rosined wheel instead of a bow. The wheel is turned by one hand, while the other hand plays the tune on wooden keys.
For more information, visit: www.hurdy-gurdy.com/faq
Catch them
Le Vent du Nord performs as part of the Otago Festival of the Arts at the Otago Girls' High School auditorium on Thursday, October 11. www.otagofestival.co.nz
