When the mandolin isn't taught in a convent or college, you have to rely on the initiative of a network of private teachers who advertise extensively in newspapers. Public demonstrations by teachers with their students are numerous. They perform in the private salons of associations, at village fairs or during the intermissions of plays.
Profesor A.C. Lachance (BAnQ)
Signor Camillo D’Alessio (BAnQ)
The Neapolitan School in Montreal
Camillo d'Alessio, born in Italy in 1869, is a mandolinist, violinist, composer and conductor. He began his musical studies at the Royal College of Naples, and pursued a career in Egypt, Greece and England, where he gave over 100 concerts before immigrating to Canada in 1904. Actively involved in the Montreal community, he composed several pieces of music and founded his mandolin orchestra "Estudiantina". He emigrated to the United States in 1915. Signor Camillo d'Alessio is without doubt the most dazzling mandolinist to have visited Canada.
Entrepreneurial virtuosos
Septuor Gibson LEVERT (BAnQ)
John Jules Levert, born in 1867, is a mandolinist, banjoist and bandleader. Starting in 1898, this entrepreneurial musician, a graduate of the New York Conservatory, began distributing a new type of instrument marketed by the Gibson company.
George Alfred Peate, born in New York in 1880, is a mandolin virtuoso. A businessman, he opened a music store in Montreal in 1899 and published educational methods that were sold worldwide. The store was passed down from father to son until 1990, and Peate Musical Supplies is one of the oldest musical instrument distributors in North America.
M.A.A.A Orchestra dir G.A. Peate (BAnQ)
La Marche des Mandolines by J.Pietrapertosa is dedicated to Professor Lachance of Montreal in 1901 (BnF)
SPARKS, P. (1995) The Classical Mandolin, BÉLANGER, R. (1986) Wilfrid Laurier, quand la politique devient passion, SAINT-JACQUES D. et DES RIVIÈRES M.J. (2015) De la belle époque à la crise, BORDES E. (1980) Le Mémorial du Québec, le Québec 1839-1889, AMTMANN, W. (1976) La musique au Québec 1600 - 1875, LINTEAU, P.-A. (1997). Quelle Belle Époque? Cap-aux-Diamants, COTÉ, C. (1990). Les racines de la musique populaire québécoise.