Simon Côté-Lapointe

Simon Côté-Lapointe is a pianist, keyboardist, composer, improviser, videographer, and Ph.D. in information science with a specialization in archival science.

His professional career as a keyboardist and composer began with the contemporary music group Rouge Ciel around 1998. Between 2000 and 2003, during his studies in mixed composition at the Université de Montréal, he played and composed for several other projects such as Malarafe, the Virâj ensemble, and the Mouvement de Musique Présente, while also exploring electroacoustic music.

Between 2003 and 2009, Simon collaborated with a plethora of musicians, either as a composer, arranger, or performer. Notable collaborations include L’agence du swing by Claude Vendette, drummer Namori Cissé, and the rock band Madcaps. Between 2005 and 2010, he composed and produced four albums: “Conjuration” (electronic music), “Suite extatique” (contemporary music), “Artsuohtaraz” (for jazz quintet), and an eponymous double album (contemporary jazz and mixed music). From 2019 onwards, Simon has played and composed for several projects: Trio Lapointe-Hébert-Gagné (jazz), Taxon Lazare (organ trio), Chanteuse (jazz-post-funk), and Horizons (sax/piano duo, with Erik Hove). In 2020, he released three solo piano albums. A fourth improvisation album was released in 2023. In 2024, he completed Topochronies, a fresco of progressive music exploring Quebec’s collective subconscious through sound archives, created in collaboration with drummer Magella Cormier. In May 2025, during a four-week creative residency at the Centre d’expérimentation musicale (CEM) in Chicoutimi, he composed and realized Préhensions des strates de sédimentation historique saguenéennes, a mixed music performance for eight musicians and sequences with archives exploring Chicoutimi’s history through oral and historical archives. In January 2026, he launched an ambitious six-album solo piano cycle: three double albums titled Hapax (volumes 1 and 2), Ataraxie (volumes 1 and 2), and Animus/Anima (volumes 1 and 2), totaling nearly six hours of music ranging from medieval music to jazz, including baroque, classical, contemporary, and current repertoires.

From 2010 onwards, he devoted himself to creating experimental video-music works, producing over twenty pieces combining various video techniques. In 2011, he received a research grant from the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec (CALQ) to create Dante’s Divine Comedy, a video-music work combining 2D and 3D animation, video art, and puppetry, as well as electronic and electroacoustic music. Completed in 2015, his project creating eight video-music works from archives, Archivoscope, was presented in France and throughout Quebec.

In 2024, he completed Topochronies, a fresco of progressive music exploring the collective Québécois subconscious through sound archives, created in collaboration with drummer Magella Cormier. In May 2025, during a four-week creative residency at the Centre d’expérimentation musicale (CEM) in Chicoutimi, he composed and produced Préhensions des strates de sédimentation historique saguenéennes, a mixed music performance for eight musicians and sequences with archives exploring the history of Chicoutimi through oral and historical archives. In January 2026, he launched an ambitious musical cycle spanning six solo piano albums: three double albums titled Hapax (volumes 1 and 2), Ataraxie (volumes 1 and 2), and Animus/Anima (volumes 1 and 2), totalling nearly six hours of music ranging from medieval music to jazz, by way of baroque, classical, contemporary, and current repertoires.

Alongside his activities as a composer, he continues to collaborate as a keyboardist with artists such as Magella Cormier, Joy Anandasivam, Michel Morissette, Norman Lachapelle, the Théâtre de la pire espèce company, and many others. He has also worked as an editor, director, and composer for multiple film and music projects, notably on movie trailers for Le règne de la beauté, Miraculum, 1987, etc. In 2019, he founded the Hecto label and distribution website.