Fred St-Gelais (born Frédéric St-Gelais, on September 2, 1974 in Chibougamau, Quebec) is a Canadian songwriter, television music composer, record producer and multi-instrumentalist, currently living in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

, Quebec.

Biography

Early work

Fred St-Gelais has been immersed in the music industry since he was a teenager. After studying music for several years, both privately where he grew up in the Saguenay/Lac-St-Jean region of the Quebec province, and at the Lionel-Groulx College in the Montreal region, he began his career playing guitar, bass and keyboards, as well as singing in clubs around Quebec in the late 1980s and early 1990s with various local

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or "cont ...

, rock and blues acts. He decided to build his own studio, where he could work on and fine-tune his production, arranging, and songwriting skills. During this time, he also produced independent albums with local artists, such as Damien Tremblay. During the same time frame, St-Gelais began to receive more and more calls from various jingle and production music producers requesting his services as a studio musician, vocalist and programmer.

Move to Montreal and later work

St-Gelais moved to Montreal in February 1999. Since then, he has worked with

Marie-Mai Marie-Mai (born Marie-Mai Bouchard on July 7, 1984, in Varennes, Quebec) is a Canadian singer from Quebec. She was initially known as one of the finalists of the first season of the Quebec reality show '' Star Académie''. Background Marie-M ...

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, the '' Canadian Idol'' television series,

Gabrielle Destroismaisons Gabrielle Destroismaisons (born December 29, 1982 in Saint-Lin-Laurentides, Quebec) is a Québécois singer. In 2000, she released her debut album ''Etc...'', which sold more than 100,000 copies in a few months and led to Destroismaisons being aw ...

, Andrée Watters, Alain Dumas, Les Mecs Comiques, Annie Villeneuve, Lindsay Robins,

Crampe en masse Crampe en masse is a Québécois comedy duo A double act (also known as a comedy duo) is a form of comedy originating in the British music hall tradition, and American vaudeville, in which two comedians perform together as a single act. Pair ...

, Réal Béland, and the band Hépatite B, in which he is also the lead singer and guitarist.

Music composed for television shows

In addition to his work with ''Canadian Idol'', St-Gelais has composed music for the following TV shows: ''Ramdam'', ''Kif-Kif'', the

interstitial program In television programming, an interstitial television show (or wraparound program or wraparound segment) refers to a short program that is often shown between movies or other events, e.g. cast interviews after movies on premium channels. The t ...

''R-Force'', ''Fan Club'', ''Star Academie'', ''Stan et ses Stars'', ''

Instant Star ''Instant Star'' is a Canadian musical comedy-drama television series which aired from 15 September 2004 to 26 June 2008. The series starred Alexz Johnson as teenage singing competition winner Jude Harrison. The show chronicles Harrison's experi ...

'', ''Le club des doigts croisés'', ''Sam Chicotte'', and '' Degrassi: The Next Generation'' (Season 7, Episode 7 "We Got the Beat").

Notable accomplishments, nominations and awards

He performed with Sheryl Crow,

Sarah McLachlan Sarah Ann McLachlan OC OBC (born January 28, 1968) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. As of 2015, she had sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is '' Surfacing'', for which she won two Grammy Awards (ou ...

and Jarah Jane, in addition to serving as Jarah Jane's musical director during the Detroit leg of the 1999

Lilith Fair Lilith Fair was a concert tour and travelling music festival, founded by Canadian musician Sarah McLachlan, Nettwerk Music Group's Dan Fraser and Terry McBride, and New York talent agent Marty Diamond. It took place during the summers of 1997 ...

. He has twice been featured in ''Recording'' magazine. The band, Hépatite B, in which St-Gelais is the lead singer and guitarist, had their self-titled album nominated for 2002 best rock album of the year at

ADISQ ADISQ (french: Association québécoise de l'industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la video; eng, Québec Association for the Recording, Concert and Video Industries, link=yes) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support the indep ...

. Three of the album's songs became top 20 hits: "Ton Amour est trop lourd", "Mélanie est partie" and "Je sais, je sais". St-Gelais, Lindsay Robins and

Christopher Ward Christopher Ward may refer to: * Christopher Ward (British politician) (born 1942), British solicitor and Conservative Party politician * Christopher Ward (conductor) (born 1980), British conductor * Christopher Ward (entomologist) (1836–1900), E ...

's song "Time Bomb," was named a finalist in the 2005 International Songwriting Competition (ISC). The ISC received nearly 15,000 entries for the competition, and fewer than 2% of the entries were selected as finalists. Their song was submitted in the "Rock" category. Along with

, St-Gelais was showcased at the

Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame (''Panthéon des Auteurs et Compositeurs canadiens'') is a Canadian non-profit organization, founded in 1998 by Frank Davies, that inducts Canadians into their ''Hall of Fame'' within three different categori ...

3rd Annual Gala, which was held February 5, 2006. At the

30th Annual Gala in 2008, Marie-Mai won a best rock album of the year

Felix Award Felix may refer to: * Felix (name), people and fictional characters with the name Places * Arabia Felix is the ancient Latin name of Yemen * Felix, Spain, a municipality of the province Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, ...

for her album ''Dangereuse Attraction'' (''Dangerous Attraction'' in English), which launched in August 2007. St-Gelais cowrote and produced the album, which also became

certified gold Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...

in August 2008, one year after it debuted. St-Gelais and

were featured on the cover and in a feature article in the spring 2009 issue of

SOCAN The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) is a Canadian performance rights organization that represents the performing rights of more than 135,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers. The organization collects ...

's ''Paroles et Musique'' magazine. In addition to their music ties, the pair was engaged in 2006 and married in Hawaii in September 2011. He was nominated for a Juno in 2010 for "Record Producer Of The Year." In September 2023, he got married to professional dancer Kim Gingras.

References