mirador is the fourth album from Montreal pianist and composer Jean-Michel Blais, set for release on September 25, 2026 via Arts & Crafts. It is Blais’ first release following his critically acclaimed collaborative album with Lara Somogyi, released last year. The new record finds the Montreal artist turning his gaze onto a wide, wondrous world - exchanging contemporary minimalism for a light and generous maximalism. It is an odyssey that spans choirs, strings and the music of the Andes, from Spanish caves to Estonian forests and all the way back to the basement in Nicolet, Québec, where Blais first imagined adventures. As a musical kid and, even if he wasn't fully aware of these things yet, as a queer person, with Tourette's, Blais' hideaway was his imaginary lookout, his “mirador,” from which he could dream the world.

“What strange place is this where time dissolves, suspended between sky and earth, between the real and the surreal, with no other bearing than the trace of sunlight slipping through a tiny window, slowly tracing its path along a cold white-brick wall,” says Blais. “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. One knocks, one shouts, yet no one comes, save for this dense silence. Until, by chance, by wandering, a door opens from within. a fissure is enough. the desire for an else where still unknown, a will, a direction finally accepted. guilt fades, the troubled mind regains its order. light returns. The sensation of stepping out of a wardrobe, a renewed coming out, and freedom appears, not as promise but as chosen risk, as adventure willingly embraced.”

With more than 375 million streams globally to his name and having played the largest live performances of his career to date, mirador began with Blais reflecting on childhood memories of building imaginary worlds in his parents’ basement. The album’s title references those early “lookout” spaces, places of refuge, invention and possibility. Working with composer and arranger William Brittelle (LA Philharmonic, The National), he had assembled a choir of 12 baroque singers and then added a string quartet of his friends. Blais also enlisted Tulio Velazco Villagra, a master of Andean instruments. Elsewhere residencies at the Arvo Pärt Centre informed the meditative atmosphere. The result is Blais’ most adventurous and transportive work yet, an album that moves fluidly between folk traditions, contemporary composition and cinematic storytelling while holding onto a sense of intimacy throughout.

Montreal-based pianist and composer Jean-Michel Blais is signed to Arts & Crafts and Mercury KX (Decca). Since his first album, il, released in 2016 and named one of the 10 best albums of the year by Time Magazine, his music has reached an international audience and accumulated over 375 million streams.

Trained in performance at the conservatory of music, he developed an intimate and expansive musical language on his own, where the piano engages in dialogue with electronic and orchestral textures. A member of the lgbtq+ community and living with Tourette’s syndrome, he also draws on his experience as a social worker to create profoundly human music, driven by sensitivity and emancipation.

His five albums have received critical acclaim, whether in Pitchfork, The Fader or Le Figaro. On stage, he performs solo, in ensembles or with orchestras, in iconic venues such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam or the Southbank Centre in London, as well as in outdoor concerts, notably in front of more than 40,000 spectators at the Montreal International Jazz festival.

A composer for film and television, he won a Cannes Soundtrack Award for his score for Xavier Dolan's film Matthias & Maxime and composed the music for the Wonderfall at Moment Factory installation in Singapore's Changi airport. His music also appears in the Netflix series The Brothers Sun, advertising campaigns for Tudor and Louis Vuitton and during french figure skater Kévin Aymoz's performance at the Milano-Cortina Olympic Games.