Les Jongleurs de la Mandragore

Ingried Boussaroque, artistic director

soprano, recorders, crumhorn, harmonium, tambour de Béarn, nay

Ingried Boussaroque founded La Mandragore in 1995. She is an experienced soloist, chorister, choir conductor and music teacher who's been in the field for more than 15 years. She is insterested in all the color of the voice: she got a solid classical training with Barbara Schlick in Germany, Glenn Chambers in Paris, Lucie Mayer and Marie-Annick Béliveau in Montreal; specialization in medieval music from the Centre de musique médiévale de Paris; arabic singing with Cherazad Helal in Tunisia; gypsy singing at the Amala school (Serbi), yiddish singing at KlezKanada (2006-07). Ms Boussaroque also holds a degree in piano from l'École de musique Vincent-d'Indy, and plays a variety of wind instruments. She started nay in 2010 with Sami Rizkallah.

A grant allowed her in 2007 to create "Neä", a solo project of electro-world music.

Seán Dagher

voice, cittern, hurdy-gurdy

Seán Dagher is a gifted string player whose main instruments are the cittern - Irish bouzouki - and the hurdy-gurdy. For 20 years, Dagher has been an active performer and talented arranger devoted primarily to Celtic, folk and the French Trouvères and Troubadours' musical traditions. Since 1994, he has been a singer and citternist with several groups like The Paddingtons, La Compâgnie Machaut and Skye Concert (he is the founder. In 1998, he lived in Dublin, Ireland studying and researching Celtic music performance. That same year, he completed a degree in Music Theory-Composition at Concordia University (Montréal). He is a member of the Mandragore since 2003.

Grégoire Jeay

traverso, recorders, percussions

Grégoire Jeay is specialized in the baroque flute. He has performed in concerts in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, France, Belgium, Mexico, Turkey, UK and the United States. Besides his affiliation with the Montreal Baroque Orchestra, he is also a member of numerous ensembles such as the Theatre of Early Music (Dan Taylor, dir.), the Montreal Baroque Band, Les Idées Heureuses, the Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montréal, the Trinity Consort in Portland, Oregon, the Lamèque Festival Orchestra in New Brunswick and, more recently, Tafelmusik in Toronto. As a chamber musician, he regularly plays with harpsichordists Luc Beauséjour, Joël Thiffault and Hendrik Bouman. He has also played in the company of the singers Susie Leblanc, Emma Kirby, Shannon Mercer, Nancy Argenta, Karina Gauvin, and Dan Taylor.

He has participated in many recordings, notably with the ensemble Les Boréades, the Montreal Baroque Band, Skye Consort, Olivier Brault, and La Mandragore.

On top of his activities as flutist, this multi-talented musician has many diverse interests: he composes and arranges, for soundtracks but also for his instrument : the flute.

Andrew Wells-Oberegger

oud, bouzouki, lute, gaida

Andrew Wells-Oberegger, a multi-instrumentalist, studied the lute with Jacques Joubert, the bombard with Gilles Plante and voice with Madelaine Jalbert. He also owns and plays a wide variety of other instruments including the oud, saz, jew’s harp, Bulgarian bagpipes, bouzouki, banjo and several kinds of flutes. A songwriter, he has also written soundtracks. Andrew has been playing with La Nef since Spring 2002 as well as local pop bands such as La Balconade (which he founded), Les Salmigondis and Les Globe-glotteurs. He joined Mandragore in 2000.

François Taillefer

percussions (darbukas, tablas, reks, duffs, zarb, etc.)

Francois Taillefer has been an active percussionist in Montreal and Quebec since 1988. He studied numerous percussion instruments with Glen Velez, Michel Dupire, Ganesh Anandan, Luc Boivin, Tony Wassab, Carlo Rizzo, among others. In addition to playing with Mandragore, he is involved with Le Bloco, a Brazilian percussion ensemble, FingerWorks, a modern percussion group, Lynda Thalie, a singer who performs in French and Arabic, Mick O'Grady, who sings Irish folk songs in English, Les Malurons and the Ensemble La Volta, two other Montreal-based early music ensembles, the Sky Consort and the McDades, two Celtic music groups and the Taima Project which performs Canadian and Inuit folk music. He has led a number of percussion workshops for children and adults. He joined Mandragore in 1998.

La Montréalaise Rebecca Bain a d'abord étudié le chant à l'Université McGill avec Allan Fast et a obtenu ensuite un Diplôme en chant et vielle médiévale de la Schola Cantorum Basiliensis à Bâle (Suisse). Elle est co-fondatrice et directrice des ensembles internationaux l'ensemble nu:n, le trio Belladonna, et l'ensemble vocal Zorgina, qui tournent à travers l’Europe et en Amérique du Nord. Elle est chanteuse et musicologue avec l’ensemble vocal Mora Vocis (France) depuis 1991. Rebecca a chanté également des rôles principales dans des projets théâtrales avec plusieurs ensembles renomés européens, y compris l'ensemble Sequentia (avec presque 50 représentations à travers le monde de l'Ordo Virtutum de Hildegard von Bingen), Sarband, et l’Ensemble Gilles Binchois. Elle a participé à une douzaine d'enregistrements de CD et donne de nombreuses stages et cours de chant et musique médiévale. Rebecca est revenue vivre au Canada en 2004, où elle participe à des projets avec, entr'autres, le Toronto Consort, l'ensemble Masques et l'ensemble vocal Rubia.

Karine Chapdelaine, from Montreal, Quebec, took her first musical steps at high school in 1990 on the electric bass and began to study the double bass in junior college. After that, she took a year off, gaining experience on the cruise ship circuit. She returned home in 1999 to begin a Bachelor of Music Degree in Jazz Performance (bass) at McGill University. Part of her degree work has included performances with the world-renowned McGill Jazz Orchestra. She performed with it at the Festival Internacional de Jazz, in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and in Mexico City. She performed in New York City with musicians from Paris, Amsterdam and U.S.A at the International Conference of Jazz Educators, with the same band in Washington DC and toured Turkey, Austria, France, Spain, Finland and Holland with them as well.

Regine Chassagne, who has been with the group since its beginnings, has been composing, arranging and performing a wide variety of music for the last seven years. She wrote the soundtrack for the movie The Shine by David Uloth, sings, plays the accordion, keyboards and drums and composes for The Arcade Fire, an alternative, avant-garde rock band and has sung and played the accordion in the Brazilian jazz trio Azucar. Currently studying jazz voice at McGill University, she is also interested in Medieval music, electro-acoustic and contemporary music, Norwegian folk music and classical Indian music as well as pop and techno. She has a degree in communications from Concordia University in Montreal.

Ms. Chassagne had to leave la Mandragore in 2003 to devote herself to the group Arcade Fire.

Chadi Alhelou alias Randu

actor, percussions, knife thrower

Ingried Boussaroque alias Lila

actress, voice, music, dance

Pierre-Emmanuel Dru alias Pierem

actor, juggler, storyteller