To say Lysandre had a dream run at the Francos would be putting it mildly. She kicked off the festival in style on the MTELUS stage, opening for her friend Lou-Adriane Cassidy’s triumphant concert. Cassidy seized the moment to pass the torch, presenting Lysandre with the SOCAN-presented Prix Félix-Leclerc de la chanson—an honour she herself received in 2024. A week later, Lysandre marked her birthday singing backup for Klô Pelgag; and in between, she also appeared alongside Catherine Leduc and Choses Sauvages, the band that includes her partner, Thierry Malépart.
“People often describe the music community as a family, but I’ve never felt that as strongly as I did this week,” says the singer-songwriter. “The award is obviously an incredible pat on the back, but the real richness is in the people I met and the conversations with my artist friends. When I was doing classical music, I went through huge moments of solitary stress, and I find it really comforting to be able to share those kinds of emotions with people who have already been through it. Supporting one another is more important than ever, because I feel like creating anything right now is almost an act of resistance. In that context, I’m happy to be able to count on the support of my peers, without the slightest sense of competition: we all lift each other up together, and that’s wonderful.”
Lysandre, whom we first noticed as a member of The Loodies, has long sought the company of her peers. After her years at the Conservatory, where she honed her classical technique, she headed to England to enrol in a program called “Collaborative Piano,” before joining British band Girl Ray on tour. Back in Québec, she took a gig singing backup for Klô Pelgag and continued to deepen her own writing, notably through a collection of poems and solo musical work.
“The stage showed me who I was and made me realize just how much I love playing with other people,” she continues. Without turning her back on her classical training, Lysandre found in pop music something she had always dreamed of: freedom. “At first, if I made a mistake, I’d beat myself up over it, because I still had those classical-musician reflexes. It’s strange, because as an audience member, I’ve always loved imperfections—those little moments when artists slip up and reveal their humanity. What you remember from a show is the feeling, the synergy between the musicians, not the missed chords! I eventually accepted that if it was good enough for others, it was good enough for me too, and I learned to be kinder to myself!”
On her latest album, Portrait de l’invisible, Lysandre plays with that fragility, drawing from her most intimate reflections to create songs that are both sensitive and comforting, carried by airy melodies and a strong electronic undercurrent. “After a difficult period, I wanted to step back from things by isolating myself in the countryside. I fed on poetry and films, including Mike Leigh’s work—he’s probably my favourite filmmaker—and Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, because I needed to breathe a little magical realism into my songs.”
While she occasionally tackles difficult themes, such as the loss of a close friend (Un ange qui fume dans son lit), Lysandre confronts her shadows and transforms them, before closing the album with JVTPM (Je veux ta paix maintenant, I Want Your Peace Right Now, in English), a culminating moment in which she rises toward the light. “That song is a kind of dialogue with myself,” says the artist. “But because I was also thinking about people around me, I decided to write it in the second person, so everyone could make it their own. I wrote it while listening on repeat to Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, which to me is a completely timeless piece, and I wanted to recreate that timeless quality. Obviously, the phrase in the title is addressed to me, but I wanted to offer it to everyone, so it could become a little phrase people say to themselves.”
On the Festival circuit:
July 19, Festival d’été de Québec
July 23, Festif! de Baie-Saint-Paul