Just A Fiddlin' Around This Town

Well, it may be February 4th already, but hell, I'm going to write about January.
Only yesterday did the last of the Christmas lights come down from the trees in town. They were spectacular. I've attached a few photos. The lights paired with the colorful, half-timbered houses made Dinan really magical to walk through at night. And seeing as nightfall comes so early in December and January, I saw the lights quite often.

January is the month of store sales, closed cafés, and Kings Cake.  Many restaurants, cafés, and stores close during January and February because there is so little business after the holidays. Most stores prefer to stay open, however, to put all of their old merchandise on sale for the month of January. I believe it is the law in France that January and July are the only months when stores are allowed to advertise sales.
France is a very Catholic country, and Epiphany is taken very seriously. Once January 6th rolls around, every store and Boulangerie in the country brings out the butter, puff pastry and almond paste to make "galette des rois," or Kings Cake. To Americans like me, King's Cake looks more like a pie than a cake. It's a delicious, flat and golden circle of puff pastry traditionally filled with frangipane and one "fêve" (bean) that, should it happen to be in your slice, designates you king for the rest of the day. The "bean" of today is most commonly a ceramic figurine that can be anything from a biblical figure to a Disney character. Each cake comes ready with it's own paper crown. I've been "king" 5 times! I think it's a sign... probably that I've been eating too much pastry. But during the month of January, a kings cake showed up at every event I went to. The holiday is of course beloved of children, so every school has a day where they serve kings cake. Though they might say otherwise, adults clearly enjoy the holiday just as much. Cake showed up at my music lesson, at dances, at meetings, everywhere. It's a reason to invite people to tea, to get together with friends, and have dessert more than once a day. For those who dislike frangipane, the cake also comes in applesauce and pear/chocolate versions, but if you ask me, the frangipane is really the best.

 Galette des Rois

 

Fiddle workshop with Jean-Luc Revault. The fiddles are laying in the center so that we could dance with our hands free.

 

 Fiddle workshop with Olivier Pont

 Olivier showing off a renaissance instrument

 I made a new friend, an English lady who happened to know some Irish and American fiddle tunes.

The fiddling pictures up above are from la fête du violon at the school of music in Dinan. It consisted of a weekend of workshops on traditional and renaissance fiddle playing, followed the next week by a concert and dance. I took the traditional music track, taught by Jean-luc Revault and Olivier Pont, maker of stringed instruments dating to the renaissance and beyond. Olivier's wife, Nelly Poidevin, plays the stand-up bass and is an archetière, or maker of historical bows. Jean-luc is the teacher of my weekly fiddle class, so I was already acquainted with his teaching style. It was a pleasure to get to know Olivier, though.

Jean-luc Revault

Last Thursday I went to Folk Night at a bar/hotel called the Cheval Blanc in the town of Plancoët. It's a monthly gathering, catering mostly to an Anglaphone audience, but the music is anything from old French songs to Irish balads to German folk pop. The owner, Micheàl, is a really sweet Irishman. Folk Night itself is run by a lovely man named Peter, who is an excellent singer and musician, and brings out the best of everyone who participates in the open mic.

 Me playing "Your Cheetin' Heart" with Peter in Plancoët

Me singing "Old Time Drunkard"

That same weekend was the fête du violon at a museum just outside of Rennes. No workshops this time, but There were a bunch of great fiddlers leading dances under a tent outside, and an interesting display of old violins that came frome someone's personal collection. At the end of the day, I performed a bunch of tunes with the rest of the people from my class in Dinan. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was a lot of fun.

 Jean-luc playing a fiddle made out of a cookie tin

 Dancin' to the fiddle.

Well, that's it for this month's post. Believe it or not, I'll be on vacation at the end of next week. French schools go much later than American ones, but they have more vacations spread throughout the year. I'm taking full advantage of the break to head down south to Nîce, a city on the Mediterranean to catch a few more degrees an possibly even some rays of sunshine. I'll post pictures at the end of February.

Until then, warm wishes to you all from France!