And that’s the path that Vishtèn’s Emmanuelle LeBlanc and Pascal Miousse chose to follow after Pastelle LeBlanc, Emmanuelle’s beloved twin sister and Pascal’s life partner, lost her life to breast cancer in 2022. Pastelle, a brilliant musician, composer and songwriter, had been an integral part of this dynamic and critically acclaimed Acadian trio from the very beginning over twenty years ago in Prince Edward Island (PEI).

Dealing with such a heartbreaking loss took its toll but both Emmanuelle and Pascal chose to devote themselves to the creation of what became “Vishtèn Connexions”, a project dedicated to completing and sharing Pastelle’s unfinished compositions. That labour of love produced the award-winning album Expansion.

„The concept of the ‘Connexions’ project started with Pastelle.“

“We created the album as a love letter to Pastelle, not knowing what we were going to do with Vishtèn,” Emmanuelle says in an interview. “We released the album in May 2024, and Pascal and I performed some shows with ‘Connexions’ which included guest artists, collaborations.”

Emmanuelle and Pascal, a proud son of Îles de la Madeleine, continued to soldier on as a duo until January of this year when they relaunched Vishtèn as a trio with pianist, dancer, and singer Megan Bergeron. A lifelong friend of the band, Megan grew up alongside Emmanuelle and Pastelle, and was part of Vishtèn’s early days, appearing on their debut album. 

Emmanuelle says, recording Expansion helped her and Pascal get through the dark period following Pastelle’s death. “Personally for me it’s been a process over the last three years,” Emmanuelle says. “I can only describe it as something that comes in waves. And I think that at the start for me it was comforting to listen to Pastelle’s recordings on her phone. So, I went right into it because I felt like I could hear her voice and I could still hear the melodies that were in her head. It felt like she was in the room.”

She was amazed at the number of recordings her sister had left behind on her phone and other devices. There were 150 in all. “I did that in one night. I just sat there with her phone and cried but also was a bit … not really shocked because I knew she was recording all the time … but I was like, wow, she actually captured so many of them. That started the process.”

Ironically they had actually started a “Connexions” project during the pandemic when Pastelle was still living but were forced to scale it back because of pandemic restrictions. “We were supposed to do ‘Connexions’ with all sorts of artists that were coming to PEI. We had a series at a Charlottetown venue for two summers confirmed and we had a bunch of people that were coming over so the concept started there with Pastelle.” Then the pandemic hit, forcing them to use only PEI artists. So, they did a summer run with a bunch of their friends instead.

„It all became very clear that we had to do it.”

When they discovered Pastelle’s recordings after her death it became clear they had to do something with them. “It just made sense,” Emmanuelle says. “We had already received some funding from the Canada Council of the Arts to do a project with it anyway. At first we questioned whether we were going to go ahead with it or not, but then it all became very clear that we had to do it.”

In the process of making the record it also became clear that there were several other artists they wanted to bring on board. “One of the tunes that popped out screamed Catherine MacLellan,” Emmanuelle said. “One screamed out De Temps Antan from Quebec.” Both MacLellan and De Temps Antan were recruited for the project but so, too, were several other artists. They brought in Rowen Gallant and Jesse Périard, two of the founding members of Ten Strings & A Goat Skin—which has since become Maukin—to collaborate on the title track. Tim Chaisson and Jake Charron of the Juno and ECMA award-winning roots traditional act The East Pointers, contributed to the record as members of 6 Hearts. 6 Hearts is an ensemble they formed with Emmanuelle and Pascal after the death of The East Pointers’ Koady Chaisson who died the same year as Pastelle. Welsh harpist Catrin Finch, Senegalese kora sensation Seckou Keita, Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist Cédric Dind-Lavoie and Mi’kmaq storyteller and poet Julie Pellissier-Lush topped off the roster.

Some might wonder how Finch and Keita ended up on a record by an Acadian contemporary trad trio. Music PEI had actually brought them together several years earlier in 2019 when they came to PEI as part of a residency program with Showcase PEI. “Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita came and Rob Oakie of Music PEI thought we would be a great match together, so he had them come to the showcase and then we spent a week hanging out together and creating music.” That resulted in a show at the College of Piping in Summerside which Vishtèn’s soundman Éli Savoie-Levac recorded.

“I remember we listened to it at some point but I had forgotten about it. When we started recording for the ‘Connexions’ project we had six tracks, it was supposed to be an EP, but then Pascal said: ‘Remember that song we recorded live at our show with Catrin & Seckou?’.” So, they listened to it again and decided right then and there it had to be on the album. “It sounded great. It was just like in the moment. That’s how they became part of the album, too. And it’s nice because you hear Pastelle’s voice on the recording.”

Asked how the recordings Pastelle left behind had evolved into what people heard on the record Emmanuelle says, the tracks on Expansion were all recorded at different times, and that while the melodies are pretty close to what Pastelle composed they weren’t all finished. “So we had to add some stuff and finish them.” She noted for example that the track that features Julie Pellissier-Lush had no lyrics when Pastelle recorded it. They had heard Pellissier-Lush read her poetry and asked her to write a piece of poetry to go with the melody Pastelle had written. “So that was all new stuff, and then we had to write an arrangement for it.”

Expansion features just seven songs so there is much more material there for Vishtèn to work with and further recordings are in the works. “There is so much stuff,” Pascal says. “We have already started to do other things with those recordings.” He said they will do some pre-production in the fall and then hopefully record during the winter. “We want to record that music, maybe not all of it, but most of the music that’s still there because there is so much good stuff on her phone still. We want to make that happen.” Pascal says that when they’re working with those recordings it’s like Pastelle is still there with them, still collaborating with them.

Emmanuelle, Pascal, and Megan all say when they play now, whether they’re doing a show or rehearsing, she’s always in the room. “She comes on stage with us sometimes, too,” Emmanuelle says. “We give her her time every time,” Pascal adds. “I think it helps us to keep going with her. She’s still there and it’s a great feeling for us to have her there.”

Pascal says, it has helped with the healing process. He says he believes that Pastelle would be happy to see what they have done with the music she left behind and their plans to record even more of that music. “I think she would be happy because there was so much good stuff. She was always in her house, always recording on a lot of instruments, like accordion, fiddle, and mandolin, always diddling some stuff on her phone. I think she’s happy. And if we can just keep those melodies alive.”

Emmanuelle says, her sister would really be happy with the way the material on Expansion has been received. The album won three awards at the East Coast Music Awards in St. John’s in 2025, including “Album of the Year”, the first time Francophone/Acadian artists that ever won that award. “She would be proud of that.”

Megan says, being part of Vishtèn again, has meant a great deal to her. “I felt really grateful from the start for the opportunity to play with Emmanuelle and Pascal,” Megan says. “And for the opportunity to connect with their music.” She says that having grown up with Emmanuelle and Pastelle it means that much more to her now to be part of all of this, keeping the music that Pastelle left behind alive and putting it out there.

Several tracks from Expansion are featured in their current show, along with material drawn from their previous albums, going all the way back to the beginning. They have been paying homage to Pastelle at their shows in the summer and early fall of 2025, then after a little down time they will shift their focus back to preserving the music their former band and personal mate left behind.

www.vishten.net

Current album:

Expansion (Self-published, 2024)

For more on the “Connexions” project and the album Expansion there is a 39 minute video featuring interviews with the band and with the artists who guested on the record. The video can be found at www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgGLxdYIhIE