Ben Charest

Benoit Charest was born in Montreal in 1964 to an English mother and a French Canadian father. At the age of 13, Benoit developped a passion for the guitar and for learning music such as the Beatkes and Led Zeppelin by ear.

Inevitably, he discovered jazz and as the age of 17, he decided to take private classes with Neil Solar, qualified at Boston’s Berkley School of Music. Solar taught him yhe basic of harmony, which helped him enormously matser the playing of an instrument and understand the music in general.

During his university studies Benoit made money playing with the best jazzmen of Montreal. In 1991, Benoit signed his first contract writing music for the film «  Montreal retro » for which he composed, arranged and directed the music. Since then, he has composed about 15 movie soudtracks, notably for the Cesar of the best music written and others price-winning « Les Tiplettes de Bellevvlle ».

Benoit has also composed music for television, theatre and about sixty advertissements. He wrote the soundtrack for Cordell Barker’s comedy « Runaway » as well as the soundtrack for the controversial film « Polytechnique » written and directed by Quebecker Denis Villeneuve.

Audio excerpts

  1. Belleville Rendez-Vous (French Version) play pause

News

Benoit Charest “composer to watch” according Film Music Magazine

Benoit Charest and Benoit Groulx are mentionned as “composers to watch” according Film Music Magazine, “for the BBC One miniseries Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell”, conjuring a playfully deft sense of a sorcerous Napoleonic era in all of its devilishly fiddling orchestral splendor, creating some of the coolest scoring spells to come our way since Harry Potter graduated Hogwarts.” http://www.filmmusicmag.com/?p=15503

Nomination of Philippe Brault and Jacques Kuba Seguin to the 2015 Adisq Awards!

Congratulations to Philippe Brault and Jacques Kuba Seguin for the nomination to the 2015 Adisq Awards, for “Album producer of the year” and “Sound Recording and Mixing of the year” for Philippe Brault for Salomé Leclerc’s album “27 fois l’aurore” and for “Album of the year – Jazz” for Jacques Kuba Seguin for his album “L’élévation du point de chute”. Good luck to everyone!

Jacques Kuba Séguin will perform at l’Astral on 28/06 pour le Festival de Jazz de Montréal

Jacques Kuba Séguin will perform at l’Astral on Friday 28 june, à 18h, for the Festival international de Jazz de Montréal.

Read Métro’s article : click here