We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Padraig Buttner-Schnirer, who works as a member of the Bent River Records Team, for his nomination for the Juno Awards! Padraig recorded the album that has been nominated in the Vocal Jazz Album of the Year category. The album is called Montréal by artist Elizabeth Shepherd. He recorded this album with Elizabeth and her band back in November 2017 at a studio in Montreal called Studio 451.
Padraig gave us some insight about the project, and answered some questions:
Could you briefly talk about the recording process of the album?
The album was recorded over two days in November of 2017. I had worked with Elizabeth before on another album that she was producing and she had really liked the drum sound I captured. She asked me to do a similar type of set up for this session. I made sure to provide plenty of sound-texture options for the drums including some special microphones I put up specifically to add character and grit to the recording.
I knew most of the band members very well and had worked with them on previous projects. There was lots of music to get through and quite a bit of pressure on my shoulders since I was working alone without an assistant, but everyone in the band was so great that it really felt like I was hanging out with friends. Rémi-Jean LeBlanc was the bass player on this session and also happens to be an artist with Bent River Records. He’s an amazing musician.
Elizabeth is a dream to work with. She’s extremely focused and knows exactly what she’s after from the recording. She’s also a delightful person and that makes working with her such a pleasure.
Were you aiming that high when you were working on it? And how do you feel now that a piece of your work has been nominated for this prestigious award?
I don’t usually think about awards when doing projects like this, and I’ve learned over the years that’s it’s hard to predict which projects will be nominated for Junos and other similar awards. But it’s definitely a great feeling when something you’ve worked on get’s this kind of recognition. I’m also very excited for the artist because I know how much they’ve put into the project.
I’ve worked on other projects that have won Junos in the past, but my role on those was fairly minor. This will be the first time that an album on which I’ve done the majority of the recording has been nominated, so that’s really exciting.