21 June : The National Day of Music in France.........

.....and in all francophone countries.


Can it already be a year ago that I wrote about the National Day of Music in France? How time flies!

Here we are again on the 21st of June and all over France and worldwide every person who can make music, is doing so -- no matter where, be it a formal recital or performance, a small venue and audience, in a grand hall or in the streets -- we all celebrate life with music!

Here in Lalinde we celebrated the Day of Music on Saturday and the entire village, young and old, man, woman and child, came to the streets of the village and the square to listen and play and sing and dance until the early hours of the morning -- every kind of music, from ancient traditional to jazz, the blues and heavy metal -- something of everything for everyone! -- And of course, in true style and according to tradition, the Lalinde Rugby Club was out in full force to provide the delicious barbecue saucisses, frites, steak - and the wine and beer!


The Fête de la Musique was first started in France back in 1982 by the then Minister of Culture, Jack Lang - after the concept of Marcel Landowski in 1981, and it soon became an an international celebration of free live music in more than 300 cities worldwide including New York, Berlin, Rome, London, Bamako, Suriname, Bahrein, Havana, Tel-Aviv, Cairo, Luxembourg, Mexico City, Sydney, Johannesburg and of course, Paris -- where the now famous Les Nuits Blanches have become an annual event to which hundreds of thousands people come. Amongst those performing tonight in the Hippodrome of Auteuil are Mika, Avril Lavigne, Tokio Hotel (they of what-the-heck-ARE-they??-fame), the inimitable Fatal Bazouka, Christophe Maé, Yannick Noah, Calogero, Christophe Willem, Shy’m, Vitaa, Kamini, La troupe du Roi Soleil, David Guetta, Laurent Voulzy, Bob Sinclar, and many more. (But what possessed Tele2 to get the dodo, Olivier Minne to emcee the event?? He has absolutely no idea of how to do it and leaves the artists dangling in mid air, has big silent pauses, is ill at ease and absolutely no stage presence...........do I sound disgusted? I am!)

Here a group of young Swiss children performing in a street (Photo: Musicfest)




Click on Link:

Chateau Lalinde : The perfect venue for your event

Relocation Orientation in France

Celtic Festival in Rennes, Brittany

Last night the annual Celtic Festival took place in Rennes, France, where the ancient and traditional sounds and colours of the Celts filled the night sky, as it did in the beginning of time.

More than 400 musicians and dancers from Britain, Scotland, Ireland and even from l'Acadie -- the ancient 'province of France in North America/Canada (New-Scotland, New-Brunswick and the Island of Prince Edward)-- and of course, France, congregated in the capitol town of Brittany for an unsurpassed spectacle of light and sound.

All the great names of Celtic music were there --- Alan Stivell on the Celtic harp, guitarist and greatest Breton cornemuse player, Dan Ar Braz, as well as the talented pianist Didier Squiban, to name but a few. British Airways even sponsored a pipe band from Scotland and the famous mariner group of Bagad de Lann-Bihoué also graced the planks. And no Celtic evening would be complete without the Irish river dance dancers, the bagadoù dancers from Auray, Locoal-Mendon, Pontivy, Lorient, Saint-Navaire, Pont l’Abbé, and Saint Evarzec.
Even the biggest sceptic would have to agree that Celtic music is as alive and as well as it ever was and enjoyed all over the world!


Click on Link:

Chateau Lalinde : The perfect venue for your event

Relocation Orientation in France