43. Coffee Concert
‘From Paris to Dublin’ a florilegia of Irish tunes and French brunettes
From brunettes to sean-nós, when baroque meets folk
It was Anna Besson’s two greatest artistic passions that prompted her to conceive this programme. Ever since her childhood, she has been immersed in the world of traditional music and dance. She discovered traditional Irish music at the age of ten until a few years later, her affinity for the wooden flute drew her to the Baroque transverse flute and historical performance. The term ‘brunette’ refers not only to a young woman with brown hair, but also to a musical form that was highly fashionable from the late seventeenth century to the early eighteenth. The genre evolved from the air de cour, extremely popular in France since the beginning of the seventeenth century and had his roots in folk music. This programme is the outcome of this twofold musical practice, and results from extensive research into the most popular airs in eighteenth-century Ireland and France, from a time when traditional and ‘art’ music were in no way opposing concepts . . .