A
proud Manitoban, Jocelyne
Baribeau is a prominent figure on the Canadian folk and roots scene. As a singer–songwriter, she tells the stories of rural Francophone communities in a tender, lucid, and humorous way. From her 2009 debut with Madame
Diva, a project for young audiences in Francophone communities in Western Canada, to her solo and collaborative projects, notably the duo Beauséjour, Jocelyne’s artistic career is deeply rooted in her home territory. She won the Francophone Artist of the Year award at the 2016 Western Canadian Music Awards and has been nominated for recognition at the Canadian Folk Music Awards, the Trille
Or, and the GAMIQ (Gala alternatif de la musique indépendante du Québec).

Her most recent album, Portraits , has received critical acclaim and airplay. The songs “Portrait de famille,” “Bottes de cowboy,” and “La blonde d’Elvis” made it into the Top 10 on Stingray Franco Country, and the album has been nominated for recognition at the Western Canadian Music Awards and the Gala Country. In live performance, she has opened for Roch
Voisine, Isabelle
Boulay, and Patrick
Norman, and has toured across Western and Eastern Canada, appearing at events such as Coup de cœur francophone, ROSEQ, Festival du Bois, and Festival Western de St-Tite. Jocelyne
Baribeau gives voice to the silences of the prairies, to memories passed down, and to the roots we choose not to forget.

Her new album, 200
Acres , her first vinyl record, comprises eight songs, also featured in a show put together with the wonderful team at the NAC.

200 Acres  is an extraordinary landscape that you explore with your boots and with your heart. It’s a place of back roads, endless fields, and stories that no one writes down but that everyone knows.

Jocelyne wants to speak for the people we pass by without seeing them—a priest who has lost his way, a bullfighter who has become a father, an old hermit we notice too late, a farmer unable to recognize the love reaching out to him, a former premier of Quebec, and the family ties that bind us—and for her dog Finnegan, caught up in a story of a border crossing that should never have been attempted.

The music of 200 Acres is deeply rooted. It smells of damp earth, wood burning in the stove, memories we keep to ourselves. The songs observe, describe,