Sur les nids sur les genêts ... sur les champs sur l'horizon...

I have joined a small chamber choir called the Ensemble Claudio Monteverdi late last year. We have partnered this season with the Choeur de Chambre d'Ile-de-France (CCIF) to sing a near complete anthology of French 20th century composer Francis Poulenc's music for unaccompanied choir. This week end, we went on tour in the rural Morvan region of Central France where Poulenc had spent some time and composed some of his music.

The building in which we were hosted, held our rehearsals and gave one evening concert was a purpose-built structure for musical projects. Many working rooms at the Maison du Beuvray have a piano or harpsichord. The largest room suitable for concerts also holds a grand piano and even an organ. However, the rural setting with the view of the Morvan mountains made the location also ideal for a yoga or meditation retreat.

Our first concert on Friday evening was given in stifling heat, which made concentrating on the singing rather difficult. Windows were being opened one after another all along the concert to try and let a breeze into the hall. Because we were alternating pieces sung by one choir and then the other, I had many opportunities to take a seat in the audience and listen to CCIF. And among the complex harmonies of Poulenc's music, I could also discern the chirrup of the crickets in the night outside. This reminded me of a blog post I wrote six years ago: I was experiencing the same thing again in a live setting.

This pleasant reminiscence was turned into great exhilaration as we succeeded in pulling off the performance of the poem Liberté by Paul Eluard, set by Poulenc on fiendishly difficult and disconcerting harmonies for double choir. Reaching the final chord of the piece with the two choirs at the top of their voices and two solo sopranos singing a very high-pitched note is at once a relieving and breathtaking conclusion to an arduous piece.

Liberté
Francis Poulenc, Figure humaine, New London Chamber Choir, Hyperion

Belle-Ile-en-Mer, Marie-Galante...

This title is the start of an iconic 80s song by French singer Laurent Voulzy. It lists names of isolated islands from around the world, comparing their isolation with the feelings of the mixed-race singer given his difficulties of cultural and racial assimilation into French society. To me however, the island-themed refrain has always had a more exotic pull to keep visiting fascinating sites all around the world.

I have just come back from Marie-Galante, an island of the French Caribbean archipelago of Guadeloupe. The diversity of landscapes on the three islands I visited in Guadeloupe is astonishing: sugar cane fields on high plateaux with cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean to the East; lush tropical gardens in the steep valleys of the central part of Grande-Terre; rainforest ecosystem on the Soufrière volcano descending nearly directly to the Caribbean Sea to the West of Basse-Terre.

I had a very restful time trekking along the footpaths in different types of ecosystems, scuba diving with sea turtles and all kinds of fish, kayaking in the bird-rich northern sea lagoon. Over the ten days I stayed there, I ascended the Soufrière volcano at 1 460m and descended five times to 20m below sea level as per my current diving limits. The local fruits and seafood were delicious. The sun shone most of the time. All this made this trip a wonderful pre-Summer off-season holiday.

The only thing that was surprisingly missing was music. On the evening of the Fête de la musique on 21 June, it was raining very hard on Marie Galante. Every body stayed at home...


Belle-Ile-en-Mer, Marie-Galante
Laurent Voulzy,
Belle île en mer 1977/1988, Sony

Take the water to the mountain

I have been roaming a lot in mountainous environments that are very close to large bodies of water. I am not used to this vicinity of water and mountain but it is particularly beautiful and soothing.








I have spent a week in North Wales at the end of April. I had surprisingly good weather trekking in Snowdonia National Park and visiting astonishing medieval castles. The newly born lambs were very cute in the fields and delicious with mint jelly in the plate. I was delighted to meet up with ILRI former colleague Peter Thorne; we walked up Snowdon together.



Only last week end, I went on tour with Choeur Varenne to Montreux and Lausanne in Switzerland. We got to admire the Alps surrounding Lake Léman and tasted a delicious Swiss cheese fondue. The weather was again outstanding.





My next holiday will again mingle a mountainous peak surrounded by water. Stay tuned to discover where that will be...

Take the water to the mountain
Yes, Union, Arista

Dancin' to the boathouse rock

Last week on Saturday I was invited to a party on a boathouse moored along the Seine River just below the Tuileries garden in the centre of Paris. Although the weather outside was very wet, the party kept going under the marquee on the bridge outside and inside the boat itself.

Barbecued sausages for hot dogs, healthy quinoa and durum wheat salads, cheese and cake to eat.
Plenty of wine and cocktails to drink.
Even a live jazz trio for the music!

On that same night a colleague was also in a boathouse further upstream under Notre Dame Cathedral in a 1970s funky dress party!

So the next time you take a cruise along the Seine and pass by a barge, think twice: it might not contain just grain or sand.

Jailhouse rock
Elvis Presley, Jailhouse rock, RCA records

From Orient are

Happy 2016 to all! One day after Epiphany, here's a short story from the East.

It is an illustration of the base-of-the-pyramid business concept. Or how a large private animal feed supplier is doing business with smallholder pig farmers in Vietnam, and how the bigger more powerful firm has to adapt to the structure and production conditions of the smaller farmers.

This is the last blog post I wrote while at ILRI last Summer. It took some time to get cleared by the private-sector partner and then published here.

We three kings
Traditional Christmas carol, The beach boys, The beach boys' Christmas album, Capitol records

Photo: ILRI/Kat Orbizo

Dona nobis pacem

Ten days after the horrible terrorist attacks in Paris, one of which targeted people enjoying a concert of music, the members of the Choeur Varenne and I were extremely proud to give their concert to a large Parisian audience.

The programme was all based on tango music. The highlight of the show was Martin Palmeri's Misatango, with the composer playing with us at the piano. I encourage you to listen to it; it is upbeat, soothing, melancolic and it sways beautifully all along.

Misatango, Martin Palmeri, downloadable online

Photo: Gregory Bastien

Be not afraid

By this time, every body with an Internet connection should know that Paris has been the site of horrible terrorist attacks last week. The victims were having some innocent fun with friends and family: drinking, eating, chatting, listening to music. These are all things dear to me too.

I was also in a concert on the other side of town listening to the British Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment playing Schumann and Mendelssohn. The concert was very enjoyable and soothing. It was over by 10pm. I walked to the Champs Elysées metro station, finding that the policemen at the Grand Palais police station were rather excited running all around with their guns and bullet-proof vests. After three years of security alerts in Nairobi and clear instructions to avoid all places where I could sniff a security threat, I did not stay on to watch what would happen and took the metro home and went straight to bed.

The next morning, I was taking an early morning train. The alarm clock did not ring but luckily, I got up naturally in time to jump out of bed and into the train in the nearby station. I dozed off again to be woken up around 8am by my mobile phone with a call from an unknown foreign number. It was my Singaporean Aunty Betty Teo calling from Australia asking if I was still alive! She was the one to break the news of the terrorist attacks to me. I then spent a good part of the train ride responding to numerous unread text messages and emails asking about my safety.

Thankfully, I had planned a long week end at my parents' country house so I spent three days away from the tense atmosphere in Paris.

On Sunday and Monday mornings I listened to France Musique radio to hear what musicians and producers of classical music had to say about what the attacks meant for the musical world and live cultural shows in France. The general feeling was that artists should not let themselves be deterred from putting themselves on show, nor should the audience stay away, as this would indicate to the terrorists that they had succeeded in terrorizing us out of what is an integral part of being Parisian: enjoying ourselves. Live music would continue, with enhanced security measures.

Having thought out this lesson in the train ride back to Paris, I found myself comfortable with this state of mind. So on Wednesday night I went to see my first show after the attacks where the audience was respectable for the Parisian premiere of City of Ashes, a contemporary opera on post-WWII Berlin, with a pianist and just three singers evolving on a 4 m² stage: the trademark of Opéra de poche.

So along with many Parisians, I still hope to enjoy food and music with family and friends in this admirable city. All are welcome to share this remarkable experience with us.

O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion
Georg Friedrich Händel, Messiah
Anne Sofie von Otter, Trevor Pinnock, The English Concert, Archiv Produktion