Les Arts Florissants fêtent leurs 40 ans ! Nos félicitations !

10 vidéos pour #ChanterWagnerDansLaRue

Sing Wagner in the Street (Chanter Wagner dans la rue)

Among many different celebrations this year, there are two - for the opera art - important figures whose bicentanary we are celebrating this year:
Richard Wagner and Guiseppe Verdi.

The 22nd of May, in only two days, we will be celebrating the 200th birthday of Wagner!
Unfortunately - or fortunately for him, considering his age - he is not among us but we have created an event on Facebook and twitter, called 'Sing Wagner in The Street' or in French: 'Chanter Wagner dans la rue'.

As the name indicates each and everyone participating in this event will contribute with a piece of music by Wagner BUT you are in fact not forced to sing. 
If you feel that you haven't yet developed your Wagner-voice to perfection (who has?) you can play an instrument, whistle or - why not - dance!

You film your contribution and publish it on Youtube and Facebook the day after tomorrow: The 22nd of May, Wagners birthday!

We hope you will contribute with something, if only a small piece and remember:

"Wagner's music is better than it sounds." the famous quote often attributed Edgar Wilson Nye, sometimes Mark Twain.

Old, old, old

2012 has been a great musical year for me. I fell in love with Horseback, was delighted about Scott Walker's latest album and was a bit afraid that 2013 might be a dull year.
And then on the 8th January, our fantastic David Bowie released a single and announced a new album.

The day after, Scott Walker celebrated his 70.
I realized my "old" idols were still kicking ass and felt relieved.
Then came the Oscar nominations. Well, if you know me, you know I don't care much about the Academy except when the prizes help foreign films to sell better. So let's sum it up like this:

Amour + Kon-Tiki = bingo!
(ok, mainly because Amour was one of my favourite films of 2012 and Kon-Tiki is named in my free guide "66 films qui ont fait l'histoire du cinéma norvégien").

2013 began well.
Then I signed a piece of paper saying that, I as an expert - oh yeah - would talk about Norwegian comedies on the 25th January.

Being paid to talk about Kong Curling when people annoyed me so much at Haugesund film festival is a really great pied-de-nez :)
All that bragging to announce that today I turn 35 and take this opportunity to wish you a prosperous year 2013!

Lord Shades & Gunnar

Open your mind, your ears and see if you can guess when you hear Gunnar's voice on this track:

The Dark Fleet by Lord Shades

For those who have never heard of this project, let me sum it up shortly.
Alex, the world famous PHP coder, founder, leader, bass player and howler of Lord Shades was my superior during one year.















Since we both like Scandinavian extreme music and since he appreciated Gunnar's voice a lot, he invited him to be one of the numerous guests on The rise of Meldral-Nok.










And of course, the Swedish former Tenor (who according to me sounds more like a baryton now) accepted. :-)
What do you think of this?




(Photo CD-cover copied from: http://www.metalfrance.net/var/metalfrance/storage/images/media/images/the-rise-of-meldral-nok/265027-1-fre-FR/the-rise-of-meldral-nok_large.jpg)

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!