Maurice Beauchamp

Biographical notes
 MAURICE BEAUCHAMP. Accordion player Maurice Beauchamp was born in Saint-Jérôme in 1931, the son of an accordion playing father, Azarie, from whom he learned the instrument at an early age. As a teenager, Maurice also learned to play the piano and the violin, acquiring much of his repertoire from his father along with 78 RPM recordings and the playing of neighbors. In 1947, with his older brother Marcel (accordion) and his new neighbor Claude Bertrand (guitar), Mr. Beauchamp (violin) formed a trio that played at weddings in Saint-Jérôme and Sainte-Anne-des- Plains. The group ended in 1952 when the Beauchamp family moved to Saint-Lin-Laurentides to farm. For several decades Maurice switched from diatonic accordion to the piano accordion, a more versatile instrument for playing the popular music of the era. He won the Philippe Bruneau trophy for the best accordion player at the Denis Daigneault competition in Saint-Hyacinthe. M. Beauchamp has passed along much of his traditional repertoire to Philippe Jetté, a young accordionist from Saint-Jacques in Lanaudière.