"Ragtime is FREEDOM! ... Ragtime music helped me to discover my own freedom as an artist!"

For Mimi Blais, ragtime music became a way to discover her many talents as an entertainer, story-teller, communicator, educator, director, actress and composer. Classically trained (started piano at age 7, then entered the Quebec City Conservatory of Music, L.Mus, B.Mus in performance & a Concert Diploma at McGill University in Montreal, where she now lives).

Whatever the style of music she chooses to play, she receives unanimous praise from the public and the media; in Canada, in the United States and in Europe. This gifted pianist, generous to a fault, causes laughter and tears. Her music speaks to the audience, caresses, tickles, charms, dazzles, and surprises….it touches the soul.

Mimi loves the theatrical. She often uses costumes to present or invent characters, making her piano concerts more visual and animated. Sometimes, when she steps out on stage, the audience may not even be sure that it’s actually her. Mimi is one of the most popular ragtime performers on the circuit. She is also the comedy star of the "genre". ... Music to be seen!

Nicknamed the New Queen of Ragtime, at her first visit to the Scott Joplin Festival in June 1990, by musicologist and historian Ed. Berlin, Mimi Blais is in high demand because of her charming personality, her deep musicality and her flawless and precise technique at the piano. Mimi received several other nicknames: the Celine Dion of the Keyboard, The Female Victor Borge and the Quebec Liberacette...

A concert artist, Mimi is touring a lot in the United States and Canada, playing, explaining and showing people why ragtime is so important in the history of American Music: Ragtime is the trunk of the tree.
Mimi just re-visited Hungary in May 2007. In march 2006, she completed a successful concert tour (her third visit in Hungary: 1993, 2004, 2006), she was invited to return in August to play at the famous Sziget Festival (in Budapest) and a week after she played at the Oslo, Norway Jazz festival as a special guest with the Ophelia Ragtime orchestra.

In 2005-06, Mimi received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to do a research on Canadian ragtime; a music folio and CDs will come out from that research.

Mimi has recorded several CDs since 1992: Ragtime (1992), Geraldine (1993), Taxi (1998), Old Rags - New Rags (2000), Made in Quebec (2002, with participation of violinist Sophie Rivard), Sunday Morning (2004), Mimi Blais plays André Gagnon (ADISQ-2004), Once Upon a Rag Time (ADISQ-2005, with participation of pianist John Petley), Life is a dream (2006 - her newest one, which features a lot of Mimi's newest compositions / non-ragtime/ and classical music.)