Stick&Bow, “The trailblazing Montreal duo that plays everything from Bach to Radiohead” (CBC Music’s The Intro), unitesCanadian marimba player Krystina Marcoux and Argentinian cellist Juan Sebastian Delgado. Classically trained musicians,they present a wide spectrum of musical styles, ranging from rock to gypsy-jazz and baroque to tango. Their eclecticrepertoire features original arrangements of some of the most celebrated works in history, highlighting the potential oftheir instruments combined. In their creative process, Stick&Bow combines musical narration with humor andstorytelling in which the powerful combination of cello and marimba transforms the listening of familiar works inrefreshing and unexpected ways. Stick&Bow is also strongly committed to the music of our time, commissioning worksthat are daring yet accessible from composers such as Luis Naon, Camille Pépin, Luna Pearl Woolf, Jason Noble, MarceloNisinman, Jean-Pierre Drouet among others.
Stick&Bow’s critically acclaimed debut album Resonance was praised by Toronto’s The WholeNote as “just brilliant” and“totally delightful” and by La Scena Musicale as full of “pleasant surprises.” Krystina and Juan toured their innovative newprogram, featuring music from Bach to Radiohead, throughout Quebec and New Brunswick as “Emerging Artists” withJeunesses Musicales du Canada in 2019, along with recent stops in Paris’ Belleviloise to a full house and in New YorkCity’s APAP showcase in January 2020. Featured in CBC Music’s The Intro and described as “boldly going where no celloand marimba have gone before,”Stick&Bow has been busy with digital performances during the Covid-19 crisis. Theywere one of the few classical crossover groups to be selected by the National Arts Center in Ottawa for the#CanadaPerforms live concerts; they arranged the song Pour déjouer l’ennui and released a video together with starsinger Pierre Lapointe which was watched over 100K times in less than 24 hours; they recorded their second album ofmusic by J.S Bach for the label Analekta with internationally renowned harpsichord player, Luc Beauséjour; theyarranged, recorded and performed a new Latin-American program commissioned by Baruch College in New York; andthey recorded five music videos, Piccolo Sessions, featuring new arrangements of music by Sting, Casals and CarlosPuebla released in 2021 (LEAF music label).
Recent highlights include: All the Madmen, a show inspired by music of Beethoven, David Bowie and Tom Waits,commissioned by Festival Classica; the children’s show, Bavela et ses 7 vies d’aventure on the subject of El día de losmuertos, combining live narration, animated drawings, original music and arrangements, commissioned by Arte Musicaand Salle Bourgie; participating at the prestigious Bach Festival Montreal, performing J.S Bach’s trio sonatas with LucBeauséjour and performing at the Festival du Bout du Monde in Gaspe with folk musicians exploring different musicaltraditions.
Upcoming projects for 2022-23 include: a 40-dates concert tour in France with the prestigious organization JeunessesMusicales France, new commissioned works by composers Analia Llugdar, Alcides Lanza and Luis Naon, a new recordingof works by Piazzolla together with the legendary tango-jazz pianist Gustavo Beytelmann featuring marimba, vibraphone,cello and piano to be released in 2022 with upcoming concert dates in Argentina, France and US.
First-prize winner at the Latin-American Cello Competition (2008), Juan Sebastian holds a Doctoral degree in celloperformance from McGill University and Krystina, first-prize winner of the OSM Competition (2012), holds a PhD from theConservatoire national supérieur de musique et danse de Lyon. Their collaboration has led them to share magicalmoments with audiences from Banff to Colombia, passing by Armenia, Italy, the USA, Ecuador, France, as well as twopan-Canadian tours in 2019 and 2020.
