Lucie Périer

Article by Robert McmIllen in the Irish News - Dec 14, 2028 : Trad/roots: Lucie Périer's talent taps into legacy of postwar Irish hospital in Normandy   The town of Saint-Lô in Normandy was the scene of an unusual and little-known postwar link between Ireland and north-west France, a link that decades later has borne fruit in the form of the formidable musical talents of Lucie Périer. SAINT-Lô is a town located in Normandy, France. During the Second World War it had become German headquarters and in 1944 was completely wiped out by US bombings. Ireland, which had remained neutral during the war, decided to help France after the bombings and Saint-Lô was selected to host the Irish Red Cross Hospital that would heal and rescue survivors of bombings. The hospital opened on April 9 1946. Among the doctors and nurses, was Samuel Beckett, working as a translator and store-keeper. The Irish brought life back to Saint-Lô, they were remembered as kind and joyful people, and their help did not cost a penny. Only two years after the hospital opened, the Irish were forced to go back to Ireland, history faded and an American Hospital was set up in 1950. Fifty years later, in 1995, Jacqueline Fontanel and Christian Périer, started to organise Irish music, dance workshops and sessions in Saint-Lô. With the help of a Mme Théot, a 70-year-old lady who had never forgotten the Irish and who was determined to honor their memory, Jacqueline and Christian set up a non-profit organisation the named Shanaghy after the Gaelic word seanchaidhe, the story-teller, the bearer of memory. For more than 20 years, Shanaghy has worked to promote Irish culture in Saint-Lô in memory of the Irish Red Cross Hospital, through music, dance, conferences and lectures, film projections, etc. In 2016 Saint-Lô celebrated, thanks to Shanaghy, the 70th anniversary of the Irish Red Cross Hospital through a week-long festival, ending with a big night of music and dance with flute player Lucie Périer and Alicia Ducout on harp, and the Roazhon Ceili Band. Today, Lucie – Christian and Jacqueline's daughter – is making huge waves playing traditional Irish music as well as Breton and French folk music for dancing on her silver Boehm flute. Growing up, she says, “all this music just made me want to dance all around the place". "And, traditional music is, whether you like it or not, linked with dancing," she affirms. “To me, the study of music began with the study of the dance. It helps you fully understand – in your body, not just in your mind and intellect – the rhythm, the groove, the structure of the tunes." However, there was a piano at home and, aged seven, Lucie started to play along with her favourite tape at that time: Gilles Poutoux (box) and Jean-Christophe Lequérré (piano). “I would spend hours and hours trying to find the chords. That's when my mom put me to piano lessons, but it did not last long. Then I tried the box, and the fiddle, and finally the flute. "My parents were my first teachers. Daddy taught me my first tunes [Jessica's Polka and The Strayaway Child, to begin with]. Then the musical friends quickly took over, and that was the best training ever, having all these people sharing their love and passion for music in a very simple way with their best friends' daughter – that was pure magic.” Lucie also took lessons with jazzman and saxophone player Jean-François Millet and spent three years in a classical music school and passed the exams to enter the Conservatoire de Caen, but chose not to study as she was a lot more attracted to the traditional way of learning music. With both Irish and Breton musical traditions very strong in the family, how does she compare the two styles? Are they like two accents of the same language? “I do not compare Breton and Irish traditional music,” says Lucie. “It's always been clear for me that these two genres are two different languages, very specific in their own way. "The dances are totally different, and so are the rhythm, the phrasing, the ornamentations... And actually, some Breton tunes and dances have more striking similarities with Middle-Eastern music and dance than with Irish or French traditional music. “Breton and Irish trad music do have something in common, like most traditional music from all parts of the world – the soul of a true cultural identity on the one hand and their geographic location on the other hand. “This is western traditional music we talk about, so of course, you find some similarities, in the structure of the tunes for example [AA-BB], the scales [but not the modes!] or the context of the tunes [work music, dance music, songs about wars and exiles...]." I ask Lucie where she played her music early on and she says the place was “with my dad.” “As soon as I could 'properly' play a dozen or so tunes, my dad would take me everywhere to play along with him, which meant sessions in pubs, gigs and festivals. “The first significant 'on-stage' experience was during July 2000 when my father and I went to play for a world music festival in Bourg Saint-Maurice [in the French Alps]. There I discovered music and dance from all over the world and got to know wonderful musicians and dancers. "Later on I made my own way playing at sessions but also for bals folks [evenings of traditional modern folk dancing] and festou-noz [night festivals] mostly with Les Round'Baleurs and Trio Tarare for over a decade. Then, in April, 2017, Lucie and husband Nicholas Latouche decided to leave France and travel to the other end of the world, to New Caledonia, hundreds of miles off the Australian coast “to see what was happening beyond our borders”. “I remember saying 'OK, let's just go there a couple of months, see what happens, and then we go back to France and Ireland'. In the end, the journey lasted a whole year. “The two of us were lucky enough to play quite extensively in Nouméa, the island's capital and more particularly at the Musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie where we were able to introduce Irish traditional music and dance and share beautiful musical moments with all the communities that shape the face of New-Caledonia,” she says. The couple also set up L'École Anémochore to introduce private flute lessons in Nouméa. "It was pretty successful, and my husband Nicolas also started to give guitar and box lessons," she tells me. Now back in France, Lucie and Nicolas plan to set up a place where musicians, singers, and dancers can discover, listen, learn and practice all kinds of traditional music and dance (with a special focus on Irish music, but not solely). On top of that, Lucie has joined with Jérôme Marchand on cello, Yvonick Fortin on guitar to form Keveiled (Keveil is the Breton for friend or friendship) to “fully break our inner glass ceilings as far as music was concerned". She says: "We trusted each other, and all of us took the risk to play this kind of music. The cello was the spine that let the flute sing and lead the melody, while the guitar enhanced the rhythm of the tunes. "Making up our music was like writing poetry. We explored different musical shades, colours and moods to tell our own story about Breton music and dance." :: You can listen to Lucie and her various collaborators at soundcloud.com/lucie-perier     more

Lucie Périer releases new traditional sounds with Caledonia based Keveiled Trio : Breton traditional sounds from the Pacific area.   New Sounds from Caledonia : Keveiled Trio Having spent most of her musical life living in Rennes, a place where irish and breton music are thriving, Lucie Périer crossed the borders and flew 10000 miles away from her homeland to New Caledonia for a one-year in-depth journey into the maze of world music in the Pacific area. There, not one month after she set foot on the island, she was already playing on TV with one of Caledonia's most beautiful voice, Rosi Garrido, then played dozens of gigs with her husband, banjo and box player Nicolas Delatouche, and started working with cello player Jérôme Marchand and guitar player Yvonick Fortin. Together they were quickly asked to play for « La Fête de la Bretagne » in Nouméa and therefore formed the band Keveiled Trio : a breton music band, playing traditional tunes from the breton repertoire as they were passed on to Lucie by masters like Jean-Michel Veillon, but also Lucie's own compositions.   Keveiled Trio were quickly encouraged to record some tunes and they release this week three pieces of their repertoire. Their music is deeply rooted in tradition, enriched by the deep low chords of the cello, as the guitar provides a delicate accompaniment. Both instruments respond to the singing flute and highlight the melody through rhythmic and harmonic lines that enhance the dancing. https://soundcloud.com/lucie-perier/sets/keveiled-trio   About Lucie Périer – background and work Flute player Lucie Périer is renowned for her use of silver boehm flute on traditional repertoire both on Irish music, and breton and french folk music for dancing. She has toured extensively in France with Normandy-based folk band Les Round'Baleurs, as well as fest-noz band and award-winner Trio Tarare. Born to a very musical family steeped in Irish traditional music, Lucie defines Irish music as her « native » musical language, as she was taught her first tunes by her father, fiddle and box player Christian Périer, and her first songs by her mother Jacqueline Fontanel. Based in Saint-Lô, Normandy, the family founded in 1995 a non-profit organisation called Shanaghy, to promote Irish culture in memory of the Irish Red Cross Hospital set up right after WW2 bombings in June 1944. Twenty years later, Lucie took over her parents' mission and organized a series of events pertaining Irish Cutlure : concerts, film projections, conferences, irish music workshops and Irish sessions. She is now a regarded as a skilled, sensitive and versatile musician, is also a demanded teacher in New Caledonia, having founded her own traditional music school L'Ecole Anémochore.   more

Saturday, May 19th was the world day for Cultural Diversity, Dialogue and Development. For this particular occasion to raise awareness of the wealth of world cultures, the Museum Of New Caledonia held a series of concerts, among which Irish Music was represented by flute player Lucie Périer and her husband banjo and box player Nicolas Delatouche.   New Caledonia and the Irish Heritage New Caledonia is an island located north west of Australia. It has been part of the French nation until now, although a referendum on independance is about to take place next November. Irish travelers have sailed as far as the Pacific Ocean and some of them settled in New Caledonia back in the 1850s at a time of massive Irish emigration throughout the world. Irish descendants can therefore still be found in New Caledonia. The Caledonian are nowadays eager to reconnect all the cultures that have mingled on the island, from the Melanesian people, the Haiti, Vanuatu and Chinese communities to the "Caldoche" (European descendants born on the island),  and of course, the "Zoreilles" (European immigrants).   "Tunes in the Lagoon"  : Irish Music in New Caledonia Strikingly enough, irish music is thriving in New Caledonia... and surprisingly, it is the French that have recently imported this beautiful music into the island over the past few years. Regular sessions have been taking place in Nouméa for the last 8 years, and since last November Irish music is getting more and more trendy as flute player Lucie Périer has settled in the country and has started to play on a regular basis in the local venues of the lengendary Lemon Bay. "the same magic" When playing jigs, reels, slides and polkas at the Museum of New Caledonia for the World Day for Cultural Diversity, Dialogue and Development, Lucie Périer and Nicolas Delatouche introduced Irish music to the local communities, a music which " shares the same magic as the music and rhythms from Caledonia ", as Events and Cultural Manager for the Loyalty Islands Cédric Ixeko put it. 6/8 rhythms can indeed be found in both cultures : Kanak dance Pilou and jig tunes just perfectly fit together !       L'école Anémochore : a music school promoting traditional music from Europe (Ireland, France, Scandinavia). "There is only a few players make the silver flute sound Irish and Lucie Périer is one of them." Brendan Mulholland Renowned for her use of the boehm flute in traditional music, Lucie Périer has launched her own music school focusing on oral transmission and traditional music. Different styles and repertoires can be taught on flute from Irish Trad Music, to Jazz and Scandinavian music. Banjo and box lessons are also provided by Nicolas Delatouche. more info : http://www.ecole-anemochore.com   http://www.lucieperier.com Facebook more

L'École Anémochore - Trad Music School in Nouméa, New Calédonia Anemochore - a plant in which the fruits or seeds are dispersed by wind New Caledonia is located in the southwest Pacific Ocean east of Australia. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Chesterfield Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of Pines, and a few remote islets. L'École Anémochore ("The Anemochorous School") is a trad music school in New Caledonia focusing on oral transmission through traditional music from Europe (Ireland, France, Scandinavia) and Polynesia. Flute lessons with flute player Lucie Périer Irish Music workshop Breton Music workshop Trad music initiation workshop http://www.ecole-anemochore.com http://www.lucieperier.com Irish music sessions in Nouméa 1st & 3rd Wednesdays at La Fiesta Traditional Music in New Caledonia The French took formal possesion of New Caledonia in 1853 and made the country a penal colony. The indigenous poulation, The Kanak, were excluded from the French economy and relegated to reservations and their culture was lost and traditions forbidden... A huge work on the Kanak cultural heritage has been carried out for over two decade and kanak traditional music is taught again in music schools. The Kanak flute, one of the oldest and most sacred instrument in New Caledonia, has been re-invented, for it had been lost due to the French occupation.   More info Centre Culturel Tjibaou Association des Formation de Musiciens Intervenants Conservatoire de Musique et Danse de Nouvelle-Calédonie more

Born to a musical family deeply rooted in Irish culture and traditions, French flute player Lucie Périer has toured with bands Les Round'Baleurs and Trio Tarare for over a decade and has just released a debut album with breton band Trio Tarare (fest noz). After touring for 10 years, breton band Trio Tarare has just released their debut album " Ventouere" . An album featuring mostly new compositions by the three musicians Nicolas Gicquel (clarinet, whistles), Manon Gicquel (accordion), Lucie Périer (concert flute). Their music is textured, delicate, sensitive and definitely made for dancing. The repertoire of the trio compiles a wide range of breton dances, but also some fine Irish tunes with the set called "Road to Ballyferriter". This set opens with a march composed by Nicolas Gicquel then goes into polkas and a reel. It clearly shows the great influence Irish music has had on the three of them and their playing. Fusion and emotion, tunes are played right from the heart. Find out more about Trio Tarare Website : tararetrio.jimdo.com Facebook   Tunes In The Kitchen Lucie has also released a series of videos called " Tunes In The Kitchen ', playing tunes in her kitchen in Brittany or in  friends' and relatives' kitchens before finding a new home in New Caledonia in a couple of months, a place where, the word has it, Irish music is thriving...! More music by Lucie Périer on Soundcloud   Posted by Lucie Perier on September 26, 2017 at 16:00 View Blog more