Structure and Surprise: Gentiane MG on Trust, Improvisation and “Can You Hear the Birds?”
For Montreal pianist and composer Gentiane MG, the most interesting music happens somewhere between composition and surprise — where deep listening, years of trust and a willingness to take risks allow a piece to change each time it’s played.
Montreal pianist and composer Gentiane MG brings Can You Hear the Birds? to Jazz at the Fort Garry Hotel on Sunday, November 1, joined by bassist Levi Dover and drummer Mark Nelson.
🎧 Listen Along: Gentiane MG has curated a personal collection of recordings she has returned to again and again over the years. “When something touches me, I tend to listen to it a lot. Each of these pieces moves me deeply.” Putting the playlist together intuitively also revealed how much spiritual common ground she hears between them. Listen to Gentiane MG Selects on Spotify»
Sometimes the best compositional decision is knowing what not to write down.
That idea sits at the heart of Gentiane MG’s approach to Can You Hear the Birds? — music shaped by careful composition, deep trust and enough openness for something unexpected to happen once the trio starts playing.
By then, she already had a decade of classical conservatory training behind her. Classical music had shaped her technique, phrasing and relationship with the piano, but she became increasingly curious about improvisation and the creative freedom it seemed to offer.
“My dream was like, I just want to sit down at the piano and just play whatever my soul is telling me,” she says. Jazz initially seemed like a way to learn how to do that. Only after she began studying it did she develop a deeper love for the tradition and its musical language.
That relationship between structure and possibility continues to shape her music today.
“I feel more free to just kind of say what I have to say and write with no constraints of style.”
Gentiane’s fourth album, Can You Hear the Birds?, reflects an artistic voice that has steadily expanded beyond purely musical influences. Each time she makes a record, she says, the challenge is finding a new perspective rather than simply recreating what came before.
Memory, emotion and the natural landscapes that have remained part of Gentiane MG’s creative world since growing up in northern Quebec.
“I feel more free to just kind of say what I have to say and write with no constraints of style,” she says. Jazz remains part of her foundation, but the ideas behind the music increasingly come from experiences, images, relationships and emotions outside of music itself.
Music has long been Gentiane’s most natural way of processing those emotions. She describes it as a language she learned before she necessarily had words for what she was feeling.
“I think that was really how I learned to live those emotions,” she says. “It’s easier for me to express emotions through music.”
Part of what attracts her to instrumental music is that it doesn’t require an emotion to resolve into one clear meaning. Joy and sadness, tension and calm can exist at once.
“You can express a sun and a cloud and all of the things,” she says.
Without the logic of words or a linear story, music can hold those layers together. For Gentiane, that ambiguity creates room for something more immediate.
“There’s something very raw about it and kind of limitless,” she says.
Nature often supplies the imagery around those emotions. Gentiane grew up in northern Quebec, and the landscapes she knew there still surface naturally when she writes. A composition may begin with something she experienced or felt, but rather than documenting that story literally, she becomes interested in creating an environment another person can enter in their own way.
“A lot of those images end up being nature,” she says. “It’s all kind of intertwined in the imagery and memories and all that.”
That openness also defines her trio with bassist Levi Dover and drummer Mark Nelson.
Gentiane has played with Dover for more than a decade, while Nelson joined the trio roughly three years ago. Can You Hear the Birds? is their first album together in this configuration.
Gentiane MG has played with bassist Levi Dover for more than a decade, while drummer Mark Nelson joined the trio roughly three years ago. Can You Hear the Birds? is their first album together in this configuration.
Their musical paths started in very different places. Gentiane came through classical music, where phrasing, melody and lyrical expression were central. Dover’s earliest musical experience was playing electric bass in rock bands, where groove came first.
“We wouldn’t have got along back then,” Gentiane jokes.
Jazz eventually became the meeting place, allowing those different backgrounds to become complementary rather than contradictory.
What matters most now is a shared understanding of how to honour a composition without becoming trapped by it. Dover and Nelson learn the music deeply, but neither is afraid to introduce an unexpected idea once they are onstage.
“We never feel boxed in,” Gentiane says. “I like surprises.”
Some of her favourite moments happen when someone takes a risk and none of them knows exactly where the idea will lead.
That trust has changed the way Gentiane composes, too. If she hears the general character of a bass line, she no longer feels compelled to prescribe every note. After years of playing with Dover, she knows that giving him the idea may produce something more interesting than writing the entire part herself.
For Gentiane MG, live performance is built on trust — knowing the music deeply while leaving enough room for the trio to take risks and follow unexpected ideas.
Increasingly, composing also means deciding what not to write down.
“We’re all writers and improvisers,” she says. Sometimes she will write something for herself only to realize, “If I just improvise, it’ll get better than what I just wrote.”
That balance between preparation and possibility carries directly into the live experience of Can You Hear the Birds?
Gentiane wanted the music to convey a sense of aliveness — strong energy, genuine communication among the musicians and the feeling that something is unfolding in the room rather than simply being reproduced.
“Let’s just all be here together and live something unique outside of our lives.”
“I want people to feel better when they come out of the show than when they came in,” she says.
For a little while, the routines and individual bubbles of everyday life can give way to something shared.
“Let’s just all be here together and live something unique outside of our lives.”
It’s an idea that connects much of Gentiane’s musical world: emotion, nature, friendship, improvisation and enough trust to leave room for something nobody planned.
The composition creates the starting point. What happens from there belongs to the musicians — and to everyone in the room listening with them.
Gentiane MG performs Can You Hear the Birds? with bassist Levi Dover and drummer Mark Nelson at Jazz at the Fort Garry Hotel on Sunday, Nov. 1.
You Help Make Space for the Unexpected
For Gentiane MG, live music works because nobody in the room knows exactly what will happen next. Musicians listen, take risks and create something that belongs to that moment — with the audience sharing in it.
“Let’s just all be here together and live something unique outside of our lives.”
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