After 50 years, Québécois trad-folk icon Yves Lambert has no plans to slow things down

The veteran musician, hitting Festival du Bois, revisits the breadth of his career with Le Grand Orchestre

By John Lucas

Yves Lambert.

Festival du Bois presents Yves Lambert et Le Grand Orchestre on the Main Stage at Mackin Park on March 8 at 6:30 pm

FIFTY YEARS IS A long time to do anything, but five decades into his career as a professional musician, Yves Lambert doesn’t show any sign of slowing down. In fact, the Québec folk-music icon has a new band that he’s excited to continue his artistic journey with.

Well, Le Grand Orchestre is a relatively new band, one that features some old friends. Paul Audy (guitar, vocals) Robin Boulianne (violin, mandolin, foot percussion), and Mathieu Royer (double bass) have been frequent Lambert collaborators for more than 10 years. Last summer, they were joined by Mélanie Bourrassa (clarinet, bass clarinet), Geneviève St-Pierre (keyboards), Antoine Trépanier (bassoon), and Gabriel Schwartz (saxophone, flute, piccolo, percussion).

“We’ve all been playing together ever since and we performed over 10 concerts in the province of Québec in 2024,” Lambert tells Stir, adding that “about 30 gigs or more are coming in 2025.”

When Le Grand Orchestre takes the main stage at Festival du Bois this weekend, long-time fans of Lambert will no doubt expect to hear songs associated with La Bottine Souriante (often shortened to LBS), the group he cofounded in the mid ’70s and toured the world with until 2002. They will not be disappointed.

“Yes, it might take about 25 to 35 percent of the concerts,” the singer-accordionist says of La Bottine Souriante’s extensive catalogue. “It depends on the crowd; I’ll adjust the set list with the mood. ‘La poule à Colin’, ‘Dans nos vieilles maisons’, and ‘La Ziguezon’, among others—but those are the ones I probably always play.”

Lambert adds that Le Grand Orchestre’s concerts traverse quite a lot of other musical territory as well. “I try, over 90 minutes and even more, to cover my entire 50-year career. I’ve recorded 11 albums with a band and nine as a solo artist, so there are a lot of good songs I can pick—some from my time with La Bottine Souriante and a lot from my most recent works, all well blended and arranged to sound amazing.”

Although Lambert left La Bottine Souriante over 20 years ago, the group continues to tour, albeit without any original members. Lambert admits that he has “mixed feelings” about this fact (“I understand that musicians need to work,” he says), but he takes justifiable pride in the band’s legacy of sharing his province’s distinctive sounds with the world, winning legions of fans, and numerous awards, along the way.

From La Volée d’Castors to Le Vent du Nord, a number of like-minded trad-folk acts have formed in subsequent decades, but LBS was among the first—not that the modest Lambert wants to take too much of the credit for himself.

“I think I’ve done my part, along with many others, and many are still doing the work,” he reflects. 

“LBS was probably the first traditional Québécois music band to tour in the U.S.A., the U.K., and Europe,” Lambert adds, noting that the group’s rise coincided with the world-music boom of the 1980s. “With LBS, it was great to make connections with our traditional music and music from other parts of the world, sharing similarities.”

At this point in his career, no one would find fault with Lambert for planning his retirement, but he has his sights set on more ambitious goals.

“For the next two years—and more, I hope—I’ll be touring with my eight-piece band,” he reveals. “I plan to record a live album with them; I am working on it. Also, I released a mini album [Romance Paradis] last year, traditional music of 1920s Montreal, from the beginning of the French-Canadian recording industry, so I’ll try to make another concert out of it. I am 68 now, and I still have work, still have ideas, still have excellent contributors to work with. I am blessed.”  

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