Star Academy is making its comeback on TV with a new director with a prestigious track record, Garou. He is delighted to be able to share his knowledge with young artists even if he initially refused the proposal from the producer of the show.
The reason? The dates of Star Academy conflict with the period when Garou made the sugars at his maple grove in Estrie.
• Also read: “I want to give them the taste of singing in French”: Pierre Lapointe, teacher at “Star Académie”
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This is also why he does not go on tour from mid-February to mid-April.
Jean-Philippe Dion therefore left with two strikes against him when he contacted him to ask him to succeed Lara Fabian, director of the Academy in 2021 and 2022.
“Forget it” was Garou’s first response.
Jean-Philippe Dion, who will be the host of Star Academy in 2025, offered to find someone to take care of his cabin.
“Are you sick? I’m going to be too jealous,” retorted Garou, in love with his quiet little corner in the countryside.
Working with pleasure
The idea nevertheless ended up gaining ground. It must be said that Garou is a regular at singing competitions on TV, having been a coach at The Voice et The VoiceIn France.
“The mission is interesting. The first meetings with the Academicians were exciting. It’s beautiful sap,” he says, without depriving himself of a sweet play on words.
-Since announcing his nomination last June, Garou has said several times that he wants the participants to have fun. He promised nothing less than a “holiday camp” atmosphere.
During our meeting with him, a few months later, on the occasion of the unveiling of the 2025 cohort at the Videotron Center in Quebec, he had a caveat.
“I want everyone to have fun working. The goal is not just to have fun. Besides, those who are not honest in their approach will have a hard time. […] I’m a party guy, that’s how I’m perceived, but I’m also a hard worker.”
Community spirit
According to him, Star Academy has a mandate different from The Voicewhich he considers first and foremost as a game. Star Ache says, we prepare artists for careers.
“You have to move forward at great speed to improve, so that the public is happy with the work you do and the performances you give,” says the director, who will be at the head of a group of teachers high-level team made up of Pierre Lapointe, Véronic Dicaire and Émily Bégin.
The “Star Académie” 2025 team: Émily Bégin, Garou, Jean-Philippe Dion, Véronic Dicaire and Pierre Lapointe.
Photo STEVENS LEBLANC
Garou hopes that a community spirit will develop among the Academicians and that they will support each other.
“I already told them that if there is one who knows how to play the guitar, he should give little lessons to the others. If you have a personality that makes you not embarrassed to go and sing in front of the world, inspire others.”
Proud of French
The question of working language will arise Star Academy. Pierre Lapointe, for one, intends to give the taste of singing in French to young people who are often attracted to English-speaking songs.
Garou doesn’t blame them.
“I don’t have Pierre’s loyalty to the French-speaking world because in bars, I practically only sang in English. I understand them,” remembers the one who nevertheless made himself known in French by singing “Belle” in the musical Notre-Dame de Paris.
“At the time of Notre-Dame of Parissinging for years only in French terrified me. Today, I am proud to have a French-speaking career, especially since I am one of those who have worked the furthest outside the French-speaking world. When you do big tours in non-French-speaking countries and the public expects your songs in French, you are really proud to carry the French-speaking torch. I want to make the Academicians proud.”
With all that, he predicts, his spring sugars “will be a disaster.”
- A musical tribute will be paid to Richard Desjardins during the first Variété de Star AcademySunday evening, at 7 p.m., on TVA. Isabelle Boulay, Éric Lapointe, Sara Dufour, Mélissa Bédard and Marc-André Fortin will perform his greatest songs.
