Marie Nadeau-Tremblay: Where Violin Meets Vocation

Marie Nadeau-Tremblay’s name has risen like a rocket through Quebec’s Baroque music scene in recent years. The colourful violinist, who has built a series of recording projects far off the beaten path, reflects on her journey, her artistic convictions, and the place of art in North American society today.

By Emmanuel Bernier

17 June 2026

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Named CBC/Radio-Canada’s 2021–2022 Classical Revelation artist, winner of the Opus Prize for Discovery of the Year, and designated Early Music America’s “Emerging Artist of the Year” in 2023, Marie Nadeau-Tremblay has established herself in just a few years as one of the most distinctive personalities on the Canadian Baroque scene. On February 8, the Quebec violinist received another Opus Prize (Quebec’s annual concert music awards) in the category “Album of the Year – Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque Music.” In the booklet accompanying the award-winning album, Obsession, the musician, now in her early thirties, confides some of her own obsessions, ranging from erasers, olives, and praying mantises to Glenn Gould’s second recording of the Goldberg Variations! Her three other albums, also released on Atma Classique, share the same irreverent spirit. One thinks of La Peste (The Plague) and Basta parlare!, recorded with her ensemble Les Barocudas, or her solo album Préludes et solitudes, where the intelligence of the musical programme sits alongside a genuine joy in performance, not to mention the consistently offbeat visuals and texts. A portrait of an artist who is as brilliant as she is demanding and versatile.

The Baroque Violin: a Revelation

Marie Nadeau-Tremblay’s unique art, however, does not come from another planet or galaxy. First and foremost, there is a family atmosphere. In particular, there is her older half-sister, pop artist Mara Tremblay, for whom the violin is one means of expression. “I thought she was cool when I was little, and I wanted to be like her, so I asked to play the violin,” recalls the musician who, one thing leading to another, went on to study at McGill University, while also considering other paths such as Asian studies and writing. “It just wasn’t working for me, classical, modern violin. But during my final undergraduate semester, a teacher asked me to join the Baroque orchestra, and suddenly I had a revelation,” explains the violinist, who never returned to the modern violin afterward.

“I’m someone for whom it’s all or nothing, and when I find something I love, I throw myself into it completely,” she adds. “So, to put it more simply, I converted my violin to a Baroque style, and I just didn’t have a modern violin anymore. And when you stop playing it and your musical language changes so much, I felt it would be dishonest to accept gigs. It may be a slightly extreme choice, but that’s how I am.” And what about Les Barocudas? “It started out as just a little McGill clique. We made funny videos just for fun. Then we made a CD, and we started getting nominations,” summarizes Marie Nadeau-Tremblay, for whom the ensemble’s name is “100% a joke,” running counter to ensembles with “grandiose names.”