Régine Alexandra Chassagne (; born 19 August 1976) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, and multi-instrumentalist, and is a member of the band

Arcade Fire Arcade Fire is a Canadian indie rock band, consisting of husband and wife Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, alongside Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury and Jeremy Gara. The band's current touring line-up also includes former core mem ...

. She is married to co-founder Win Butler.

Early life and career

Régine Alexandra Chassagne was born in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirte ...

, Canada, and grew up in St-Lambert, a suburb south of Montreal.Carpenter, Lorraine. (16 September 2004).
Hot property
." ''

Montreal Mirror ''Montreal Mirror'' or just ''Mirror'' was a free English language alternative newsweekly based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada which was distributed every Thursday. It had a circulation of 70,000 and reached a quarter of a million readers per week. ...

.'' Retrieved 19 October 2007.Arcade Fire talk about their music
" (6 March 2007). '' Raidió Teilifís Éireann''. Retrieved 16 March 2007. Her parents, who were of French descent, moved from Hispaniola during the dictatorship of

François Duvalier François Duvalier (; 14 April 190721 April 1971), also known as Papa Doc, was a Haitian politician of French Martiniquan descent who served as the President of Haiti from 1957 to 1971. He was elected president in the 1957 general election on ...

, which is alluded to in the Arcade Fire song "Haïti", in which she sings, ' ("My unborn cousins haunt Duvalier's nights"). The line is in reference to the relatives who were killed during the Jérémie Vespers massacre. Chassagne attended before earning a B.A. in communication studies at

Concordia University Concordia University (French: ''Université Concordia'') is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the t ...

in 1998, and went on to study jazz voice briefly at

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Univer ...

. She was singing jazz at an art opening at Concordia in 2000, when Win Butler met her and persuaded her to join his band. They married in 2003. Ten years later, their son was born on 21 April 2013. Chassagne has also been involved with a medieval-themed band called and with Jimmy Rouleau in the jazz duo Azúcar. She also wrote the music for the two-minute David Uloth sketch "The Shine", and she contributed to the UNICEF benefit project as part of the North American Hallowe'en Prevention Initiative, performing the song "

Do They Know It's Hallowe'en? "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?" is a charity record inspired by " Do They Know It's Christmas?". It was released on October 11, 2005, in Canada on Vice Records by a cast of rock artists and other performers under the name "North American Hallow ...

" along with Win Butler. She plays many instruments on stage, including

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a ree ...

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in ...

hurdy-gurdy The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a vi ...

, keyboards,

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

and

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

. In

, Chassagne performs lead vocals on some songs, including "Haiti", "In the Backseat", "Black Wave/Bad Vibrations", "Empty Room", "Abraham's Daughter", "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)", "Creature Comfort", "Electric Blue", and "Unconditional II (Race and Religion)". In March 2015, Chassagne, along with Win Butler, attended the launch of

music streaming A music streaming service is a type of streaming media service that focuses primarily on music, and sometimes other forms of digital audio content such as podcasts. These services are usually subscription-based services allowing users to stream d ...

service Tidal, and revealed themselves, along with other notable artists, as

shareholder A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal o ...

s in the company.

Personal life

Chassagne has been married to fellow Arcade Fire member Win Butler since 2003. They had a son in April 2013.

References

External links

Inter Press Service on the Arcade Fire and Régine Chassagne's Advocacy for Haiti
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chassagne, Regine 1976 births Living people Arcade Fire members Canadian accordionists Canadian rock drummers Canadian indie rock musicians Concordia University alumni Canadian women rock singers Haitian Quebecers Canadian people of Haitian descent McGill University School of Music alumni People from Saint-Lambert, Quebec Singers from Montreal Hurdy-gurdy players Grammy Award winners Canadian women drummers French-language singers of Canada 21st-century Canadian multi-instrumentalists 21st-century Canadian pianists Canadian women pianists 21st-century Canadian keyboardists 21st-century Canadian drummers Canadian percussionists Canadian recorder players 21st-century accordionists Women accordionists 21st-century Canadian women singers 21st-century women pianists 21st-century flautists