Goodbye Switzerland – Hello Toronto! Chère Françoise is a Swiss turned Torontonian songstress with experience reaching from folk to jazz and chanson. Her quaint compositions in English, French and German, are seasoned with electronic elements and a touch of inconnu.

Chère Françoise’s head mistress’ first musical memory was by age 3 when she participated in the local Swiss folk dance competition. Being a total disaster as a dancer her parents tried to find other ways to interest her for Switzerla...

Goodbye Switzerland – Hello Toronto! Chère Françoise is a Swiss turned Torontonian songstress with experience reaching from folk to jazz and chanson. Her quaint compositions in English, French and German, are seasoned with electronic elements and a touch of inconnu.

Chère Françoise’s head mistress’ first musical memory was by age 3 when she participated in the local Swiss folk dance competition. Being a total disaster as a dancer her parents tried to find other ways to interest her for Switzerland’s folklore heritage. So Franziska has gone from playing Swiss folk music with an accordion to classical choir singer, was a musical theatre performer and drummer in a marching band, played in a soul band for almost ten years, was the lead singer in a jazz foursome, recorded background vocals for several bands (among others on Tokyo Police Clubs debut LP "Elephant Shell"), and studied jazz for a while. Since coming to Toronto in 2007 she has been devoting herself to find new musical elements to play with, and formed a collective called Chère Françoise – translated “Dear Franziska” in her second language French – where all of these different musical memories eventually are knit together.

In 2009 Chère Françoise released their first self produced EP “Departures” and sold several thousand copies to this day. In a three piece formation with Franziska Beeler on vocals and the guitar, Shawn Jurek on bass and Graydon James on drums, Chère Françoise performed numerous shows in and around Toronto, Canada. In order to promote their EP in Europe, Chère Françoise then toured in Germany and Switzerland for two weeks, where they performed ten shows and festivals, amongst others three sold out shows in Hamburg and Berlin, sharing the stage with the likes of Portugal. The Man, Sophie Hunger, The Howling Bells, or Anne Clark. Back in Toronto many more shows followed and soon Chère Françoise would start to expand their panopticon of musical instruments, which now contains kalimba, melodica, glockenspiel, looping pedal, laptop, and plastic flute.