Willows, l’alter ego de Geneviève Toupin, voit le jour en 2014. Comme le saule dont il porte le nom, son projet s’enracine dans la mémoire et déploie ses branches vers la lumière, en un mélange délicat de folk, d’instruments acoustiques et d’harmonies vocales résonnant aussi bien en français qu’en anglais. L’album Willows (2014) et le EP The Hills (2021) en sont deux témoins évocateurs.
Avec à son actif plus d’une centaine de spectacles au Canada et en Europe, elle a remporté le Trille Or du Meilleur album folk en 2025. Elle s’est aussi démarquée par plusieurs nominations : aux GAMIQ (Album folk de l’année pour Willows, EP folk de l’année pour The Hills) et aux Canadian Folk Music Awards (Autrice-compositrice autochtone de l’année, Autrice-compositrice francophone de l'année).
Musicienne et chanteuse aguerrie, elle s’est produite en tant que membre fondatrice du groupe folk-expérimental CHANCES, dans l’orchestre maison du jeu-variété musical La guerre des fans sur Noovo, dans le spectacle Danse Lhasa Danse, ainsi qu’au sein de Hemenetset de Jorane. Elle a également co-signé la musique du documentaire Sans maman de Marie-France Guerrette pour l’ONF.
Son plus récent album, Maison vent (mars 2023), puise dans la force des racines et le souffle du territoire. Il rend hommage aux femmes de sa vie — celles qui l’ont précédée et son expérience en tant que femme et Franco-Métisse de la Rivière Rouge, aujourd’hui résidente de Montréal. Relié intimement au territoire et à ce qui nous lie aux ancêtres, Maison vent intègre le Michif-Français, langue héritée et réappropriée, comme un fil vivant entre mémoire, identité et création. Sa musique devient alors un espace de reliance et de liberté, entre enracinement et envol.
Willows is Geneviève Toupin's alter ego, a Red River Métis and Franco-Manitoban artist raised on the Prairies and now based in Montréal. Like the tree whose name she carries, her music is rooted in memory and opens toward the light, blending folk textures, acoustic instruments, and harmonies that flow freely between French and English. Each song is an offering, born of both earth and sky, carrying the resonance of where she comes from and where she is going.
Her voice and songs have traveled across Canada and Europe. Along the way, her work has been embraced with recognition, including the Trille Or Award for Best Folk Album in 2025 and nominations at the GAMIQ awards and the Canadian Folk Music Awards. Yet more than accolades, it is the path itself — the act of weaving stories, voices, and landscapes into sound — that defines Willows.
Her most recent album, Maison vent (2023), draws on the strength of roots and the breath of the land. It honors the women of her family—those who came before her and her own journey as a woman and stepmother—where past, present, and future intertwine. The ties to the land run through the music like an unseen current: in the presence of wind, in the voices of memory, in the quiet force of what endures. She sings in French and Michif-French, a language inherited and reclaimed, a thread between memory, identity, and creation. Each song opens a space where intimacy meets immensity, and music becomes both grounding and release, carrying the subtle power of what connects us all.
Her solo career highlights include playing festivals such as Montreal’s Francofolies, Pause Guitares Festival in France, Voix de Fête in Switzerland, TV appearances on Belle et Bum Téléquébec, APTN’s Indigenous Day Live, hosting and performing in the multi-artist televised concert Constellation Francophone for UNIS TV, and co-producing, hosting and performing in the televised music series La Tournée des Cafés for TFO. Accolades include the Trille Or awards for Best Folk Album (2025) and Best album out of Western Canada (2015), a Western Canadian Music Award for Best Francophone Recording (2010), and nominations at the Canadian Folk Music Awards and Montreal’s Gamiq Awards.
Alongside her solo career, Geneviève is active as a composer and musician on the Montreal and Canadian music scene. She is a founding member of the experimental-folk group CHANCES, with whom she recently had the opportunity to perform with in the multidisciplinary music and circus show Après la nuit for the Montreal Complèment cirque Festival. She was a singer/musician in Danse Lhasa Danse as well as in Jorane’s project Hemenetset. She co-composed the score to Marie-France Guerrette’s documentary Unmothered for the National Film Board. She was featured as singer/musician in the houseband for Noovo's musical game-show La guerre des fans (2023).
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