Robert Moyes
Special to the Record
Victoria-raised guitar virtuoso Quinn Bachand is well known to lovers of acoustic music in Courtenay.
A musical prodigy at a very young age, the 21-year-old Bachand has long had a national reputation, both on his own and for touring with Canadian fiddling legends Ashley MacIsaac and Natalie MacMaster. A master at gypsy jazz, Celtic, and bluegrass, the fleet-fingered Bachand has performed locally in various venues, including at Vancouver Island MusicFest.
Ask him what he’s really excited about these days and the answer comes readily: getting on stage with the Jeremy Kittel Trio, who are making their Island debut in Courtenay later this month.
Trio leader Kittel is an award-winning fiddler and composer who has written for cello icon Yo-Yo Ma, while long-time collaborator Joshua Pinkham has been hailed as “the future of the mandolin” by Mandolin Magazine.
“These two are really incredible players,” says Bachand, who adds that Kittel was only 16 when he started college, where he studied composition and wrote classical music. But rather than Bach and Mozart, he mostly took his inspiration from American folk music – an influence central to the Trio’s repertoire.
“I guess you could say what we do is Celtic neo-classical grass,” says Bachand with a chuckle. That sounds esoteric, but it’s very much in the spirit of those newgrass-and-beyond virtuosos like Edgar Meyer and Bela Fleck, who combine sovereign technique with a boundless musical imagination.
Bachand has often been cast in a supporting role behind fiddle stars like MacIsaac, and he has a similar function helping to drive the rhythm in the Trio.
“I’m the ‘bass and drums’ of the band,” Bachand notes. That said, he also gets lots of opportunities to play guitar to the top of his ability.
“Jeremy’s music is through-composed, meaning that it’s not like a standard song that shifts back and forth between choruses and verses,” Bachand explains. “And within the composition there is lots of room for soloing and improvisation,” he adds. “We know the music extremely well, so the tunes are breathing in a different way each night. Playing with people you trust like that is a great feeling.”
Kittel and Pinkham met each other at an event at Carnegie Hall over a decade ago and have often played together since. Bachand met them in Alaska several years back and got hired for a few gigs. Later, in 2014, they formalized the arrangement and the Trio was born.
All three musicians lead separate professional lives, with Bachand currently studying engineering at Boston’s Berklee College of Music (with an eye to producing his own CDs in the future). But even with his studies, the gifted guitarist was able to make time for a short West Coast tour with the band, including one gig at the Cumberland Hotel.
Bachand, who’s been intimidating fellow musicians since before he was a teenager, is clearly delighted to be in a band with such superlative players.
“I perform at a lot of music festivals and I’ve seen most of the people who play in that ‘American new acoustic’ style and Jeremy and Joshua never stop surprising me at how good they are,” Bachand marvels. “It’s next-level musicianship … these guys are at the very top of the food chain.”
The Jeremy Kittel Trio performs Saturday, October 28 at the Cumberland Hotel. Tickets are available through the Vancouver Island MusicFest website at Islandmusicfest.com