The songwriter Stéphane Venne died Friday at the age of 83 and his death shook his admirers, friends and collaborators, including the musician, arranger and conductor Marc Fortier, who did not hesitate to declare At Journal: “I owe my career to him.”
Marc Fortier had worked with Stéphane Venne as an orchestrator since 1968. The two artists quickly became friends. Both living in Beloeil, they often ate together and their meals – excuses to get together and discuss life – never lasted less than three hours.
Both of them worked on a bunch of projects, If I say yes with Renée Claude until Plouffe through music with Pierre Lalonde, Isabelle Pierre and the Quebec National Day.
“In my opinion, we are losing a unique pearl. He was a man of exceptional, piercing intelligence. It has made me happy all my life,” says the artist.
He praises the quality of the works of Stéphane Venne, who knew the music, the lyrics and the rhythm and who arrived in the Quebec landscape with “a new style and an absolutely unusual construction of songs, both commercial and artistic”.
Marc Fortier also emphasizes that Stéphane Venne was a very good coach for artists, notably for Renée Claude and Pierre Lalonde.
-“He encouraged me so much”
“He is greatly responsible for my career. He encouraged me so much. The look he gave you said to me “it’s beautiful, I like it”, he didn’t need to speak,” continues the man, who loved his 55 years of activity alongside Stéphane Venne.
“With him, I worked with the best, he brought me exceptional songs. The song, for him, was poetry and the marvelous,” he says.
The musician even goes so far as to compare the piano playing of his late friend (few people knew that he played the piano so well) to that of… Elton John!
“The news of his death completely devastated me. We spoke over Christmas and New Year’s Day! We also exchanged extremely long emails and since there hadn’t been any for a while, I was starting to worry,” he breathes.
