Rencontres Internationales des Luthiers et Maîtres Sonneurs 2011

As being members of the so called 'Comité George Sand à La Châtre' (Aurore and I), responsible for the folk music festival 'Rencontres Internationales des Luthiers et Maîtres Sonneurs', we participated in the implementation of the festival this year.

It's one of the biggest and most important folk music festivals in the world, last year visited by 35 000 people during the four day event.
This year it celebrates its 35th anniversary!

For those of you not being familiar with 'Rencontres Internationales....', the festival was inaugurated in 1976 as a commemoration of the centennial of the death of author George Sand (Amantine/"Amandine" Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant) - so closely-knit to this part of France.

George Sand was one of the most important authors and intellecutals during the Romantic Era. She had a house near La Châtre in a small town called Nohant (or Nohant-Vic), where she stayed most of her life, although she she was born in, also lived in and often frequented Paris.

The house in Nohant today serves as a museum, where one can see not only how she lived but who - among the famous writers and composers/musicians of the time - she invited to stay with her 'mansion'.
Even though she had adversaries like Charles Baudelaire and Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, we found among her friends (visiting Nohant) people like: Franz Liszt, Marie d'Agoult, Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Eugène Delacroix, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Musset and not least Frédéric Chopin.

As being a very succesful writer, she accumulated quite an impressive amount of money (2,5 million € or almost 3,5 million US$ in todays currency). She also descended from an important family, historically seen. With her money she helped the above mentioned friends when they were in trouble - not least Chopin.

As a Swede I might point out for other Swedes, that Sand was in her own right a very prominent writer, novelist, playwright and memoirist, not at all the 'muse' of Chopin, as she is commonly known in Sweden. She wrote extensively within many different genres and she left behind many tens of thousands of letters, written to friends.
She became somewhat controversial at the time, wearing, what was regarded as, men's clothings, smoking pipe etc. but she didn't consider herself a feminist. The controversy was perhaps more related to the fact that she was an independent and succesful woman. She was indirectly also engaged in politics through her writing.

In 1976, Michèle Fromenteau, a musician being specialized in playing classical music (Mozart, Händel, Corette) on hurdy-gurdy ('vielle') and Jean-Louis Boncoeur (originally Edouard Lévêque) - one of the most famous individuals in Berry, a writer, man of theatre, 'metteur en scène', playwright, painter and folk scholar - decided to create a mustering point ('rendez-vous') for traditional folk music.

They chose the castle Saint-Chartier, 3 km from Nohant and there, for the first time, on the same spot, were gathered musicians and dancers (professionals and amateurs) and instrument makers (manufacturers).

The name 'Maîtres Sonneurs' was chosen from a book by Sand by the name of 'Les Maîtres Sonneurs'.

The ambition was to display all the different aspects of not least the hurdy gurdy (vielle à roue in French) and bagpipe (cornemuse in French)-instruments.
Even if those instruments are still very visible, we today find instruments of every kind, even Swedish 'nyckelharpor'. 'Modern' instruments are also used of course, the important thing is to advocate the folk music genre, ancient or newly written.

The last three years, this festival has been held at another castle, called Château d'Ars, only three km from La Châtre where we live.

At first a rather small event, it has each year grown bigger and today it hosts 140 instrument manufacturers, displaying around 2500 instruments, 30-35 concerts with artists and visitors from all over the world (not only Europe but the American continent and India e.g.).
Besides the official stages where invited quests perform, there are also the so called 'free' stages, where one can ad lib if one want, the stages often being combined with a dancefloor.
There are also classes in instrument manufacturing, folk dancing and much more.
For the children and young there are a lot of different events going on and the ambience is very warm, everyone being there for the music and the dance.

Besides this - and we think this is important to point out - one have a highly developed environmental, 'green', thinking meaning that one serve a lot of different food - mostly - made in an ecological way. There are garbage cans everywhere, one buy a glass for the beverage (1€) and take it home, not throwing it somewhere so often being the case with other festivals. A lot of the things being used are recyclable material etc.
Below the program during the festival and in the following blog(s), you will find photos from the festival.

The program during the festival:

Jeudi 14 Juillet 2011
Déambulation 12h Balkan Brass Band
Le Potager 16h30 Goat System
La Clairière 18h30 Balkan Brass Band
La Pommeraie 20h "Fabulations sonores" - Alain Pennec
Le Potager 21h15 Olli & Mood
La Clairière 22h Arasta Bazar
Le Potager 23h Orquesta Tipica Imperial
La Clairière 23h30 Tiennet Simonnin présente duo Esbelin - Simonnin & duo TTC
La Pommeraie Nuit : 0h30 Rachel Averly & Olle Gällmo
La Clairière Nuit : 1h30 Bourré et Bal

Vendredi 15 Juillet 2011
Le Potager 16h30 Baluji Classic Trio
La Clairière 18h30 Duo Laloy - Le Tron
La Pommeraie 20h Liz Carroll & Dáithí Sproule
Le Potager 21h15 Carte blanche à Titi Robin
La Clairière 22h Duo Valla - Scurati
La Clairière 23h30 Clémence Cognet présente les Poufs' à cordes & LamZé
La Pommeraie Nuit : 0h30 "La crêpière maudite" - Sophie Joignant
La Clairière Nuit : 1h30 Annie Ebrel - Erik Marchand & duo Le Bour - Bodros

Samedi 16 Juillet 2011
Déambulation Lâchez les chiens
La Pommeraie 14h Radical Strapontin
Le Potager 16h30 Pad Brapad
La Clairière 18h30 Carte blanche à Daniel Detammaecker
La Pommeraie 20h Baluji Trio
Le Potager 21h15 Olle Gällmo
Le Potager 21h35 Duo Sylvain Barou - Ronan Pellen
La Clairière 22h Carte blanche à Sophie Cavez
Le Potager 22h45 Courants d'Eire (soirée irlandaise)
La Pommeraie Nuit : 0h30 "OVNI" - Alexis Vacher
La Clairière Nuit : 1h Ciac Boum

Dimanche 17 Juillet 2011
La Pommeraie 14h Création Christian Pacher - Julien Barbances
Le Potager 16h Hommage à Jean-Louis Boncoeur
La Pommeraie 16h "La fiancée du crapaud" - Sophie Joignant
Le Potager 17h15 La Bottine Souriante
La Pommeraie 19h Lâchez les chiens
La Clairière 21h La Machine

(Poster instruments copied from: http://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/var/plain_site/storage/images/nouvelle-republique.fr/loisirs/concerts-spectacles/les-35-ans-des-rencontres/111828818/19671535-1-fre-FR/111828818_reference.jpg)
(Painting George Sand as young copied from: http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/data/images/1002889.jpg)
(Photo George Sand as old copied from: http://kamizole.blog.lemonde.fr/files/2008/04/george-sand-par-nadar.1207970438.jpg)
(Photo Jean-Louis Boncoeur/Edouard Lêvèque copied from: http://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/var/plain_site/storage/images/nouvelle-republique.fr/loisirs/concerts-spectacles/les-35-ans-des-rencontres/111846588/19671531-1-fre-FR/111846588_reference.jpg)
(Photo Edouard Lêvèque as Jean-Louis Boncoeur copied from: http://www.lancosme-multimedia.fr/ressources/produits/items/le-berry-de-jean-louis-boncur-w7pk7mf.jpg)
(Photo Château Saint-Chartier copied from: http://www.asso-semoy.fr/assets/images/Expo%20GSand/090405-1255-St-Chartier-web.jpg
(Picture of the book 'Les Maîtres Sonneurs' copied from: http://www.decitre.fr/gi/96/9782070371396FS.gif)
(Photo Château d'Ars copied from: http://nohant-ripoton.pagesperso-orange.fr/images/Chateau_d_Ars-2.jpg)