Home » Jazz Musicians » Rachel Therrien

Rachel Therrien

Rachel Therrien is a trumpet and flugelhorn player, composer and music producer working between New York City and Montreal. She is considered one of the most promising jazz musicians of her generation (Downbeat, All About Jazz, Radio-Canada). Recognized for her personal touch and her many influences of traditional jazz, afro-latin and global music, Rachel has a world class reputation, versatile and innovator. 

Rachel Therrien has won several competitions and nominations, to name a few: JUNOS nominations (2021 – VENA + 2023 – Ostara Project) “Best Jazz Album”, ADISQ nominations (2021 – VENA + 2022 – Music Producer for Noé Lira’s Latiendo la Tierra), GRAMMY AWARDS nomination (2022 – Virtual Birdland, Arturo O’farrill “Best Latin Jazz Album”), the 2015 TD Grand Prize of the Montreal International Jazz Festival, the 2016 Stingray Rising Star Award, a nomination for the 2018 Independent Music Award in New York for “Best Jazz Album Producer” and the LOJIQ award at the 2018 Bourse RIDEAU to help develop her career in France.

Rachel Therrien has now produced 6 albums under her name and many more to come. The most recent, MI HOGAR  (February 10th 2023, Outside In Music), a respectfully Latin Jazz album recorded in New York City, Montreal and Toronto with about 20+ musicians. The previous one, VENA, recorded in Paris in May 2019 with her Europeen Quartet with whom she tours Europe since 2017 was launched in the spring of 2020 under the French etiquette Bonsaï Music and wins 2 nominations for Jazz Album of the Year at the ADISQ and JUNO Awards as well as 4 stars at Downbeat. With her Montreal Quintet, Therrien produced 3 albums under the labels Multiple Chord Music (CA), and Truth Revolution Records (USA) including Why Don’t You Try (2017), winner of a critique in the Downbeat Editor’s Pick. In 2016, Rachel launches a first ethnomusicology research project with the world album Pensamiento: Proyecto Columbia (2016), recorded with 13 musicians in Bogota, Colombia. She is now working on her 6th album, this time purely Latin Jazz with about 20 special guests. This last project was recorded in Montreal, Toronto and New York in January 2022. The impressive press kit of Rachel Therrien includes a Grammy nomination as a side woman of the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra and gratifying critics from many recognized news outlets (Le Devoir, La Presse, All About Jazz, New York Hot House, Downbeat, Latin Jazz Corner, …)

Carrying her project solo since 2009, Rachel Therrien performed her music in many festivals, theater and jazz clubs throughout the Americas, Europe and the Caribbean. To name just a few, special guest at the International Jazz Day in Odessa, Ukraine, the renowned French Festival Juan Les Pins Jazz Jazz Festival, Kremenchuk Jazz Festival in Ukraine, Polanco Jazz Festival in Mexico City, Havana Jazz Festival in Cuba, Lula World Festival in Toronto, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola and 55 Bar in New York, Andy’s Jazz Club in Chicago, B-Flat Berlin in Germany, Gode Jazz in Valencia, Spain as well as most of the Canadian Jazz Festivals. She gave masterclasses in Marciac, France, as well as at the North Carolina University and was invited in 2022 to participate at the International Trumpet Guild, a staple for trumpetists around the world.

Read more

Tags

35
Album Review

Diva Jazz Orchestra: "30": Live at Dizzy's Club

Read ""30": Live at Dizzy's Club" reviewed by Jack Bowers


The “30" in the title of the superlative all-woman Diva Jazz Orchestra's latest album stands for 30 years, which, believe it or not, is how long the orchestra and its remarkable drummer and leader, Sherrie Maricle, have been up and running and making beautiful music at home and abroad. Among U.S.-based big bands, it would seem that only Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Woody Herman have had longer runs than that. Fast company indeed. So is Diva ready for comparisons? ...

34
Album Review

The DIVA Jazz Orchestra: Swings Broadway

Read "Swings Broadway" reviewed by Jack Bowers


At the ripe old age of thirty (closer to a hundred in big-band years), the superlative New York-based, all-female DIVA Jazz Orchestra remains as frisky as a newborn colt, swinging up, down and around Broadway with abandon on its thirteenth album, a brisk and colorful tribute to the Great White Way that shines brightly from start to finish. The album opens and closes in a mid-1950s vein, raising the curtain with Steven Feifke's breezy, well-grooved arrangement of ...

20
Album Review

Chad Lefkowitz-Brown and the Global Big Band: Open World

Read "Open World" reviewed by Jack Bowers


There are times, thanks to the indestructible human spirit, when even the most horrendous scourge--say, a global pandemic that has claimed millions of lives in countries around the world--can lead to the occasional silver lining, a small yet persistent light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Case in point: Open World, a superlative new album by saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown (commonly known as Chad LB) and the Global Big Band, whose name describes exactly what it is: an ensemble ...

13
Album Review

Arturo O'Farrill: Virtual Birdland

Read "Virtual Birdland" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Whenever an obstacle presents itself--even one as devastating and disruptive as a global pandemic--it's a sure bet that musicians will find a way around it, a way to keep making music even in the most grievous circumstances. Jazz musicians have been especially creative during the Covid-19 scourge, using social media, the internet and any other means at their disposal to share their music with the world. True, the paychecks aren't as large or as regular as once they were, but ...

6
Album Review

Rachel Therrien: Vena

Read "Vena" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


A hot organ intro accompanies the simple, fifty-two second, folk-dance breeze of “Folks Jam" before sweeping you into the grander, ballroom dance that is “V for Vena." It's an alluring intro to trumpeter/flugelhornist Rachel Therrien's fifth album as a leader. You quickly hear the beauty of Therrien's playing: there's no need to nerdily testify which horn she's playing on any given solo (even if you could spot the difference). Just gasp and when she's done soaring or imploring, ...

3
Album Review

The DIVA Jazz Orchestra: DIVA + The Boys

Read "DIVA + The Boys" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


The all-female DIVA Jazz Orchesta has a boy-meets-girls story threaded into its origin, as drummer Stanley Kay served as the impetus behind the group's formation. Therefore, it's only fitting that the ladies have a few gentleman over to join them for some high times in the music every now and then. This eight-song set, recorded live at Pittsburgh's Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in March of 2017, finds clarinetist Ken Peplowski, dearly departed trumpeter Claudio Roditi, trombonist Jay Ashby, and ...

6
Album Review

The DIVA Jazz Orchestra: DIVA + the Boys

Read "DIVA + the Boys" reviewed by Jack Bowers


After more than twenty-five years as one of the world's most renowned big bands, drummer Sherrie Maricle's superlative all-female DIVA Jazz Orchestra invited a quartet of “the boys" onboard to help ensure the ensemble's twelfth album's success. Even though DIVA needs no consorts to affirm its unremitting mastery, it is nonetheless pleasurable to witness these talented women sharing the stage and blowing up a storm with such esteemed guest artists as clarinetist Ken Peplowski, trombonist Jay Ashby and (it hurts ...

Read more articles

" The big challenge for the young musician is developing a distinctive voice. Competence and even virtuosic flare are fairly common, but without the voice, the sound can come out bland, pasteurized. Her band's got a voice, a melding of voices creating a sparkling ensemble sounds on Home Inspiration. " - Dan McCleanaghan, All About Jazz "Trumpeter Rachel Therrien, out of Montreal, lacks a deep resume at this point. She's young. But she makes, in one of the toughest formats—the standard two horns and a rhythm section— beautiful and distinctive modern jazz, engaging music with a personality and presence

Read more

Primary Instrument

Trumpet

Location

Montreal

Willing to teach

Intermediate to advanced

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

People of Earth

Truth Revolution Records
2023

buy

Swings Broadway

Diva Records
2022

buy

Virtual Birdland

Zoho Music
2021

buy

Open World

Self Produced
2021

buy

DIVA + the Boys

MCG Jazz
2020

buy

Chiki

From: People of Earth
By Rachel Therrien

Last Inspiration

From: Home Inspiration
By Rachel Therrien

Videos

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.