About Damien Robitaille
Damien Robitaille .mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-smallFrench pronunciation: , born June 1981) is a Canadian musician from the village of Lafontaine, Ontario in the Georgian Bay area, two hours north-west of Toronto. He is a Franco-Ontarian musician whose career is mainly based in Quebec, where he has lived since 2003.
Damien Robitaille's father was Francophone, and his mother was Anglophone. Robitaille started playing the piano when he was eight years old. Later in his childhood he learned to play such instruments as the trumpet, guitar and violin. At fifteen, he began to compose his songs in English.
At eighteen, following the advice of his music teacher, Damien Robitaille composed his first three songs in French and recorded his first album. He studied classical music at the Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, where he was a member of the rock band The Mezameeze . The band performed Damien's French compositions and won the Battle of the Bands university music competition.
Halfway through his university career he was a finalist in Ontario Pop, a Franco-Ontarian competition, in which he won a scholarship to attend a one-year program at "L'École Nationale de la Chanson de Granby" in Granby, Quebec. In 2002, Damien Robitaille released his first album, Damien. In 2004, Robitaille, a young poetic musician, performed as a finalist at the Festival de la chanson de Granby in Granby, Quebec. This festival, as well as the Francouvertes festival in Montreal, Quebec where he won first prize, helped Robitaille become a successful musician in Quebec. That same year, he opened for Jim Corcoran in Sudbury. In the fall, Damien Robitaille participated in the Radio-Canada show Le Garage, hosted by Véronic DiCaire, which brought together emerging artists from Ontario, Quebec and the Outaouais region. Also, in 2004, he was a finalist at the Festival de la chanson de Saint-Ambroise, where he won six awards. He then moved to Montreal, where he has lived ever since.
Robitaille performs the vocals, guitar and piano for all of his songs.
In March 2005, his album Damien Robitaille was selected at the Gala des Prix Trille Or as "Discovery of the Year". That same year, he won several awards, including first prize at the Francouvertes de Montréal. It was the first time a francophone artist outside Quebec won that prize. He also won the SOCAN song award.
In 2006, Robitaille released his first full-length album titled L'homme qui me ressemble . The title is a reference to the duality of being a performer having to take on a persona, which is a large part of Robitaille's act. He travels in Europe and participates in several French-Canadian festivals. He also took part in the tribute show to Plume Latraverse and the tenth-anniversary concert of the Francouvertes. At the end of the year, he was named "Sacré talent" by the radio station Espace Musique . The album L'Homme qui me ressemble received four nominations at the ADISQ in 2007. The record also received a nomination for "best album" at the Juno Awards in 2008.
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