Alain Bédard has had a very active professional career as a musician since the 1980s. His participation in various major events has taken him all over the world, giving him a fascinating experience. Although he has been involved in Word Beat with the DADJE ensemble (a Senegalese-Quebecois group), the West Indian dancer Josianne Antourel and classical music with the violinist Martin Foster (UQAM Chamber Music Orchestra), he has always maintained a passion for jazz. He has played with the Quebec groups Ogane Song, Carole Therrien, Jazzlab Orchestra, musicians Michel Lambert, Félix Stüssi, Pierre Tanguay, Rafael Zaldivar, John Roney, Frank Lozano, Michel Côté, François Bourassa, Rémi Bolduc, Joe Sullivan, André Leroux, etc., as well as many international artists such as ; François Théberge, Donny McCaslin, Stéphane Belmondo, Julien Loureau, Ted Nash, Pascal Shumacher, Thoine Thys, etc.
For 25 years now, Alain Bédard has been pursuing a very interesting career with L'AUGUSTE quartet, which he travels to all continents. Playing only his original music, he has evolved in more than 25 countries on 4 continents. Thus L'Auguste has had the ability and expertise to carry out all his projects in countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, USA, Italy, Hungary, Ireland, UK, Belgium, Luxembourg, Estonia, Poland, Russia, Netherlands, Germany, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, France and Canada (all major cities and almost all jazz festivals), etc.
He has released 6 albums including the CDs "Auguste", "Sphère Réflexion", "Bluesy Lunedi" nominated for the ADISQ and JUNO award in the category best album of the year 2010, "Homos Pugnax", "Circum Continum", the Auguste quartet plays today the music of "Exalta Calma". Alain with the Auguste (in trio, quartet and quintet) has also played many times on radio recordings for Radio-Canada and CBC, Radio-France and Radio-Belgique.
The Auguste quartet is an exciting piece of modern jazz played in a very personal way. It is a story that speaks. The musicians play with time and with great spirit. The production has as much potential in individual playing as in teamwork. - Mihaly Czekus, Budapest
Auguste Quartet is complexity and limpidity, inner exaltation that participates in the apparent calm, difficulty of interpretation versus ease of communication, for an intellectual music full of feeling and emotion. For it is in the motivation that the resolution of the ordeal is found, in the love of music well made, well understood, in and through the love of and for the other, of all the others, that the difficulties, the contradictions and the tensions are cancelled out, to be transformed into the beauty we so much need.
The AUGUSTE QUARTET is supported for tours and concerts by Effendi Records, Musicaction, Sodec and sporadically by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Alain Bédard is also the artistic director and musician of the Jazzlab Orchestra, which was formed in 2004 and is recognized as one of the leading groups in Canadian jazz. The group has 7 albums to its credit: "Reunion" (2004), "Desire" (2006), "Chance Meeting" (2008), "Octo Portraits" (2010), "Portraits d'ici" (2012), "World Colors" (2014), "Quintessence" (2019) and Loguslabusmuzikus (2021).
He is also the founder of the Effendi label, which has been active since 1999 and has released 164 albums, organized thousands of concerts & 122 national and international tours.
In 2015, the Festijazz de Rimouski awarded him its "Héron d'Or" for his contribution to the development of Quebec jazz and the creation of the first edition of the Rimouski Jazz Meeting.
