Mardi Gras La Châtre

Rencontres Internationales des Luthiers et Maîtres Sonneurs: A résumé

Below selected photos from the festival at Château d'Ars:

The two photos below show where Aurore and I worked at the entrance.
Far right (photo just below) you can catch a glimpse of Aurore (or her profile)

The inmarsch with musicians during the first day.

One of the musicians playing on his nose as you can see.

This is a well known musician, whos name we don't remember.

What we do remember is that he is or was the teacher
of René Villeneuve who won the soloist cornemuse competition.

Below we see Baluji Classic Trio

Below Balkan Brass Band, playing at the entrance
during the opening day of the festival.

Below 'La Machine' (with Grégory Jolivet among others)

Below 'The Crazy Swedes'

The three photos below 'La Bouttine Souriante'

Below: 'Hommage à Jean-Louis Boncoeur'

Rencontres Internationales des Luthiers et Maîtres Sonneurs Scène Ouverte, Garizim

Garizim is - as you must know by now if you have followed what we have been writing on the blog - the music group, consisting of Johannes Geworkian Hellman (hurdy-gurdy/vielle), Elias Frigård (saxophone) and Jordi Carrasco Hjelm (contrabass) and below you find them on the list of groups who played at the so called 'Open Stages' during the festival ('vendredi 15/Friday 15th).

I know however that their ambition is to perform as one of the major 'acts' during next years festival (2012).

(Photo copied from: http://www.garizim.se/nyheter.html)

Palmarès du concours solistes 2011

Our friend Johannes Geworkian Hellman, is a very competent hurdy-gurdy musician but he is never pleased with his playing or his performances.

Therefore it took some time for him to decide whether or not to participate in the competition for hurdy-gurdy's. Finally he did and what happened? He won of course!
Below the announcement of the laureates and after this photos and a video displaying Johannes with his instrument.

Below the video, you find a photo of Rémy Villeneuve, who won the cornemuse-competition.

Here he is in our car, happy to be in France and on his way to Château d'Ars:

In these pictures he is trying different hurdy-gurdy's from different manufacturers:

As a musician you must also give yourself the chance to romance 'un peu'

In this photo we see a young, charming woman by the name of Cassandre and Johannes.
She is a very competent musician but also skilled in most folk dances.
She is doing research on folk music and she speaks four-five languages:

Below the video displaying Johannes playing for the audience after having won the competition.
The quality is not the best as it's recorded with our iPhone:

René Villeneuve (above),
evidentally talking with his fiancée
as he has such a dreaming look
on his face!