Free French Concert With Lucie Therrien And Susan Poulin

Thursday June 9th, at 7 pm
McArthur Library,
270 Main Street,
Biddeford, Maine

Award winning recording artist Lucie Therrien, and popular playwright and actress Susan Poulin will give a concert at the McArthur Library in Biddeford, Maine on Thursday June 9th, at 7 pm. The program will consist of French songs from France, Quebec, Acadia, and New England, accompanied on the guitar, spoons and drum, separated by English historical and traditional anecdotes. Poulin, well-known for her comedies, has been an apprentice of French songs, culture and history with master Franco-American artist and cultural affairs commission appointee Lucie Therrien for the past year.

"I've admired Lucie's work for a long time," says Poulin. "She's a consummate performer and has the ability to put what she¹s doing in a cultural context. I couldn't have found a better teacher."

Therrien replies, "It has been so invigorating to work with gifted artist Susan Poulin. I feel she was the perfect person to bestow the benefits of this award upon. She represents the Franco-American culture with grace."

This concert is made possible by a Traditional Arts Apprenticeship grant from the N.H. State Council on the Arts, a state agency for the National Endowment of the Arts. These grants are designed to bring a master artist together with an apprentice for the purpose of passing on a traditional art so that this art may be preserved for future generations. Poulin and Therrien are just one of twelve master-apprentice teams working in New Hampshire during this 2004-2005 grant period.

Says Poulin, "The Traditional Arts Apprenticeship has made it possible for me to reconnect with this lost part of my heritage. Laughing, singing and playing the spoons with Lucie is like coming home again."

Join Lucie Therrien and Susan Poulin for a celebration of French songs on June 9 at the McArthur Library, 270 Main Street, Biddeford, Maine. The concert is at 7:00pm and is free and open to the public. For info call207-284-4181.

Biography

Lucie Therrien has published 4 videos, 13 recordings , 2 researches, and a songbook; distributed nationally and internationally. She has appeared on TV, radio, and in concert in Quebec, the United States, and France, and has participated in cultural exchanges in Europe, Canada, Martinique, No. Africa, and Vietnam. She has presented at the Smithsonian Festival in Washington D.C., and is included in a compendium CD of Franco-American artists on the Smithsonian Institute "Folkways Records" label. She has merited numerous awards , and was included in the "Who's Who of International Music" of 2000. Ms Therrien serves on the American Canadian French Cultural Exchange Commission. She maintains a studio in Portsmouth where she teaches music and French.

Selected by Portland Magazine (Nov. 2003) as one of the "Ten Most Intriguing People in Maine", Susan Poulin has been a featured performer at the Women's Performance Festival at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, The Maine Festival and the Minneapolis Fringe Theater Festival. She was voted the 1996 Contemporary Story Champion at the First Annual Yankee Yarns Contest in Keene, NH and has twice been selected as a New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Individual Artistic Fellowship Finalist. Susan, in collaboration with partner Gordon Carlisle, created and performs in the critically acclaimed theatrical productions, "In My Head I'm Thin", "Spousal Deafness. . . and Other Bones of Contention", "Pardon My French!" and "Ida: Woman Who Runs With the Moose."

Thank you!

Lucie Therrien
Susan Poulin