Maz (24)

With an official WOMEX17 selection and 16 top Canadian award nominations, MAZ’s music has proven its category-defying appeal. With their third album ID (idea), they celebrate Quebec’s traditional music while embracing modern streams in a flow of folk, jazz and electro. Their ideas are played, sung and danced, they speak to heart, body and soul without losing the mind! Photo: Sophie Valcourt On stage, MAZ takes you on a musical journey that renews with Quebec’s heritage, where songs and instrumentals open up to new groovy perspectives. Keyboards and electric guitar meet up with fiddle, banjo, double bass and voices, over blazing Quebecois foot tapping and electro beats. This year, the band will be featured in many industry events, both at home and abroad, including WOMEX 17 in Poland. At frist described as futuristic with Télescope (2011), JUNO nominated as best instrumental album, the band’s music reveals a modern take on Québec’s instrumental culture. With Chasse-Galerie (2013), it evolved further while reinventing one of Quebec’s most famous legends, making it resonate to the sound of here and now – and receiving two ADISQ nominations on the way. With ID, the legend’s flying canoe becomes a magic carpet! Jump aboard and join Marc Maziade (electric guitar, banjo, foot percussion, programming, vocals), Rémi Pagé (violin, foot percussion, vocals), Roxane Beaulieu (keyboards, vocals), and Hugo Blouin (double bass, vocals) for a moment of complicity and intensity. A show of unifying songs, jaw-dropping solos, trance inducing grooves, engaging soundscapes and frenzied foot stomps. Since its beginnings, the MAZ crew have presented their concert in over a hundred performances throughout Canada, in the US, Mexico, Ghana, and soon in Poland. With the launch of their third album, the band’s music receives regular radio play in Quebec, Canada, and the United States.