Pierre VENIOT
Woodwinds Music Tutor
Flutes, saxophones, clarinets, piano, keyboards and percussions.
Pierre’s musical endeavour is fast-approaching five complete decades, having started in 1965 when he played first clarinet for his Montreal school band. Early steps on the journey included private tuition with various teachers and a jazz performance major at McGill University. His television appearances began in 1975, supporting local Canadian artists on the most popular music and variety shows of the era. Around this time, he also became a key member of the ”Bouquet de sons” classical baroque trio, playing in more than 100 concerts in two years. In the early 1980s, his band Agharta recorded their first album and headlined the first Montreal International Jazz festival. The success of Agharta brought Pierre to the attention of master percussionist Michel Séguin (Van Morrison, Don Alias) and the two formed a new group, Jouga.
In the early 1990s, Pierre co-founded the world-beats group Anoosh, featuring the acclaimed Armenian singer / percussionist Raffi Niziblian. Anoosh not only won the prized ‘Rythmes Du Monde’ contest in Montreal, but also toured extensively through Europe, appearing at the Peter Gabriel / Thomas Brooman-founded ‘Womad’ festival. In 1992, Anoosh received a Juno nomination – the Canadian equivalent of the Grammy Awards.
During this period, Pierre also freelanced with many jazz, blues, and R&B cover bands, before teaming up with percussionist-drummer Jean-François Fabiano (Gato Barbieri, Jean-Luc Ponty) to form the World Unit. Comprised of the finest world-beats and jazz musicians in Montréal, the World Unit made their debut television appearance on ARTV’s ‘New World Symphony’.
As the 21st century dawned, Pierre branched out into new areas, culminating with his 2007 production ‘Storias’, a modern acid-jazz oriented album. Pierre’s band of the same name became a regular feature on the many jazz venues in Montreal, and lead to invitations for him to arrange/compose for various artists. Pierre has worked with choirs, singers, theatres, dance companies and instrumentalists, exploring fresh approaches to arranging and expanding his mastery of music software.
He is now writing extensively for Film, TV and Commercials and has signed many publishing contracts with major Publishers and Music Libraries in the USA and Australia.
Pierre is now established in HK and helping to build the next generation of performance artists, regularly taking time out to teach young, local musicians. Since 2012, Pierre is established in HK, he has been performing at many venues in HK from Functions to Jazz bars and Jazz festivals. He teaches regularly at DC and conduct some saxophone workshops for LCSD.
