Madeline Tasquin Trio at Blue Whale

Singing in both English and French, Canadian-Californian songcrafter and multi-instrumentalist Madeline Tasquin weaves nimbly from jazz-tinged folk to odd-meter soul, from twisted pop ballad to delicately dark fairy-tale. Raised in Northern British Columbia by her opera singer mother and Austrian gold-miner father, Tasquin began playing the piano as soon as she could reach the keys and developed an acute sense of melody and harmony by singing on long car trips with her mother and two younger sisters. In her teenagehood, Primus and Mr.Bungle played on repeat alongside Rachmaninoff, Satie and Chopin. After completing a degree in Architecture in Sydney Australia, she returned to her musical roots upon relocating to Berkeley in 2006. ...

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Singing in both English and French, Canadian-Californian songcrafter and multi-instrumentalist Madeline Tasquin weaves nimbly from jazz-tinged folk to odd-meter soul, from twisted pop ballad to delicately dark fairy-tale. Raised in Northern British Columbia by her opera singer mother and Austrian gold-miner father, Tasquin began playing the piano as soon as she could reach the keys and developed an acute sense of melody and harmony by singing on long car trips with her mother and two younger sisters. In her teenagehood, Primus and Mr.Bungle played on repeat alongside Rachmaninoff, Satie and Chopin. After completing a degree in Architecture in Sydney Australia, she returned to her musical roots upon relocating to Berkeley in 2006.

Since the 2012 release of her EP Another Trip Around the Sun, Madeline has spent her time in the Bay Area, Europe and in the Pacific Northwest, touring and developing a repertoire that leans closer to soul and folk than the orchestral-pop flavor of her debut recording. In “The Acorn and the Oak,” a romantically wandering melody reminiscent of a Chopin nocturne is woven through a driving blues ballad in compound meter. In “Twinkle Twinkle Little Satellite” she quotes the familiar nursery song melody and then corrupts it in chromatic fashion, resolving into a doo-wop anthem about relativity. The thread that weaves it all together is a 3-octave voice that adapts to the emotional and musical moment with grace, skill and passion. Among those who have joined her on the stage are Rebecca Kleinmann on flute, Town Quartet and Amaranth String Quartet, Paul Bertin on saxophone, Dan Cantrell on accordion, Reed Mathis on bass, Mateo Lugo on guitar, Trevor Garrod on banjo, Ezra Lipp on drums and a slew of other fine Bay Area talent. A full-length album is in the works and is expected to hatch in spring of 2015, a co-proudction collaboration with producer-composers Daniel Wright and Dan Cantrell.

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