Les Oiseaux Rares

Each year, in December, a group of artisans from Cormatin and surroundings organises a two-day exhibition.

Les Oiseaux Rares 2015

Even though Cormatin itself has a rich reservoir of people with creative talents, the members of this group seem to have as their motto "The more the merrier", because each year they invite a number of guest artisans from nearby places. This year the hard core of Les Oiseaux Rares (Rare birds) shared their workshops with these migrant birds. The idea is quite simple: in Cormatin a trail of bird footsteps has been set out, and following this trail one passes all the participating artisans. To make sure that not even one artisan is accidentally not spotted, in front of each workshop a wooden bird (a caricature of the artisan in residence) is placed.

Iris Griot jewelry - Cormatin

Just like the year before one of Cormatin's potters had made 300 unique soup bowls, which could be purchased at € 6 each from each of the participating artists. Again, the hard core of these birds had made a big cauldron of soup, which was simmering away throughout the day. The soup was free of charge, and varied from a simple tomato soup to soups made of slightly more unconventional ingredients.

Pascale Ponsard - Cormatin

To keep a long story short, there is a lot to be admired during those days. The articles on offer were as varying as the soups; they ranged from ceramic, rattan, paintings, felt clothing to hand painted silken shawls. And this is just a random selection from everything on offer. The first day we did not get much further than the workshop of one of our friends (Pascale Ponsard, a silk decorator, who makes not only shawls, but she also decorates material meant for wedding gowns – an extravaganza financially only affordable for Saudi Princes and the like), and the workshop of potter Pierre Arnoud, where it was so hectically busy that we could only view one of the three available rooms.

Tracking

The second day we had planned our outing a bit more careful. We decided to start our round along the bird's nests around noon. That is the time most French are having their warm meal at home, which gave us the chance to have a good, undisturbed look around. Besides we could have our light lunch trying out the soup made by the various cooks. This set-up worked perfectly. When we had seen enough at around 2 o'clock, both we and our fellow villagers had eaten enough, and while we were leaving the workshops others streamed in.

Soup bowls - Pierre Arnoud - Cormatin

Some soups were a bit strange, though, in terms of ingredients: what to think of a soup made of carrot, curry powder and oranges, or of celeriac, hazelnuts and apple, or of peas, lentils and turnips? What is wrong with chicken soup?
That most likely did not appear on the menu out of solidarity with the less rare birds….

paintings by Jean-Louis Schoffel - Cormatin

World music : Toumani & Sidiki Diabaté Chalon-sur-Saône

September 2016 the new brochures for the concert series season 2015-2016 became available. In the Netherlands we were kind of spoilt, as we have found out now; Rotterdam, Amsterdam and The Hague have all more or less prestigious concert halls, offering each year e relatively big number of classical, jazz or world music concerts.

Vader en zoon Diabaté - Internet

Of course scale is an important factor when comparing the cultural volume of Burgundy and the Western part of the Netherlands. Rotterdam has a population of approx. 600 000, and the biggest town around here, Chalon-sur-Saône, boasts only 50 000. Not to mention places like Mâcon (35 000), Montceau-les-Mines (20 000), Le Creusot (25 000) or the centre of our universe Cluny (5 000).
Series like "Great Masters of the Piano" with e.g. Brendel are not likely to take place around here. And for the equivalent of the North Sea Jazz Festival one has to travel to Antibes Juan Les Pins or Montreux.
In order to find something interesting one must look for it. In the Chalon brochure I found a concert by 2 Malinese kora players, who had some very interesting Youtube files on the internet once I started looking for it.

Vader en zoon Diabaté - Internet

Hence we decided to give it a try; we bought tickets and were expecting some sort of folk music concert in one of the small halls of the theatre. But also this time we were pleasantly surprised. Not only was the (big) hall chock-a-block full (we estimated about 800 man), but the two African gentlemen (father and son) turned out to be a pair of excellent musicians. The kora happens to be an African harp with a peculiar sound; its body is made of half a calabash, and all other parts making up the kora (strings, pegs, etc.) were originally made of parts (bones, teeth, skin) of the gazelle. It turned out to be a very interesting concert, where I could easily suppress my built-in aversion against the (classical) harp as a solo-instrument.

Michael Palin's Sahara - Internet

Only once we reached home I found out that we had not been watching some obscure African musicians, but that both men had actually won their spurs at big international festivals (Glastonbury, Roskilde, Brighton) where they managed to draw huge crowds. That might also explain the use of a wah-wah pedal in the last tune they played. Over and above that, my son, who has an amazing memory, neatly explained that we had seen Toumani Diabaté in 2002 in an episode of Michael Palin's "Sahara". Remark noted….

Jazz concert John Scofield / Joe Lovano Mâcon

After the modest concert of the Carla Bley Trio in Chalon it was hard to imagine a concert so contrary to the previous one than the one the John Scofield / Joe Lovano Quartet gave in Mâcon.

Joe Lovano & John Scofield - Internet 2015

I had heard both of them ages ago at a.o. North Sea Jazz and though grown a bit older (haven’t we all?) those two played like they did when they were still in their prime. The concert in Mâcon was organised in collaboration with the Crescent Jazz Club, which celebrated its 20th birthday this year and got the golden opportunity to have a full house, slightly differing from the max. 50 man which will fit with great difficulty in the club.

John Scofield / Joe Lovano Quartet - Internet 2015

As I said earlier, the musicians were enjoying themselves, they played a number of pieces from their latest CD "Past Present" and the rhythm section of Ben Street – bass and Bill Stewart – drums were laying a thoroughly swinging foundation for the frontline. One interesting thing was (apart from the music) that albeit tickets had been sold the seating was free during the concert. This partially solved a typically French problem, where people turn up 15 minutes late without blinking an eye, and then worming their way to their seats somewhere in the middle of a row. And the musicians will have to wait…

CD's signeren

The hall was chock-a-block full and a rough count clocked up approx. 800 seats. The Crescent Jazz Club can only in its wildest dreams imagine these numbers; it is most likely a multiple of their yearly number of visitors.

Afterwards one could purchase CD's, signed on the spot by the two masters themselves; who would say no to a chance like that?

Jazz concert Carla Bley Chalon-sur-Saône

Jazz concerts featuring "big" names are not very common in this area. The amount of musicians we have had her in the last 10 years with an international reputation can be counted on the fingers of one hand: Jazz Et Caetera and Jazz in Trivy have featured René Urtreger (L'Ascenseur sur l'échafaud with Miles Davis), Rodha Scott has played here once and Biréli Lagrène has played here a number of tims, the last concert together with Didier Lockwood.

Espace des Arts - Chalon-sur-Saône

When not long ago the brochures for Chalon (Espace des Arts) and Mâcon (Le Théâtre) landed in our letterbox we were pleasantly surprised to see that the Carla Bley trio with Steve Swallow – bass and Andy Shephard – tenor and soprano were playing in Chalon.
Carla Bley and Steve Swallow I knew by name although I had never heard them play, not even on record. Paul Bley (Carla's ex) however I had seen and heard live, and I was expecting music along those lines. Tickets were ordered quickly, and I was really looking forward to find out what sort of music this group was playing.

Carla Bley - Internet ca. 2015

Carla Bley, clocking up 80, made a very fragile impression (not so strange at her age) and played surprisingly modest. Something I had difficulty coming to grips with was the fact that all musicians were playing from sheet music, something one does not see very often with jazz groups this size. The music was very calm and quiet, almost docile, and while it is with "normal" jazz concerts not unusual that people are tapping their feet to the beat, the public here was as quiet and calm as the music they were listening to. despite this,

Carla Bley Trio - Internet ca. 2015

I still found it an interesting concert, if only to add Carla Bley to my list of "I have heard him/her live" musicians.
And after this concert it was waiting for another one, this time by John Scofield!

Will the real Mr. Brickmaker please stand up?

We have always thought that Noël Marembeaud, no matter how the name is spelled, has been the founder of La Tuilerie de Chazelle. All clues were pointing in that direction: dozens of bricks we found around the house, a number of floor tiles, some roof tiles, all with his name printed on them, the memorial plaque which I have mentioned earlier, with his name, birth year and year of death chiselled in….

The well known stamp

Whenever we found another broken or damaged brick with his name printed within its distinctive cadre, we hardly looked at them, convinced as we were it was another Marembeaud brick.
Until Sue decided to protect the roots of a plant with some old roof tiles and broken bricks she had found somewhere.

La Tuilerie (sketch Michel Bouillot)

Without any apparent reason I picked up one of the bricks and noticed that the name I was expecting was not that of Marembeaud, but a totally unknown name to me of which most likely the first letter was missing.
Without too much fantasy one might draw the following conclusion: the name on the brick was "(B)OURGEON ANTOINE", with under it the text "(A CHA)ZELLE". The letters between brackets are my guess.

The odd one out

Bourgeon is not an uncommon name around here, and based on the length of the cadre around the name it seemed unlikely that there had been more than one letter in front of OURGEON. The question boils down to the following: who was the founder (or the successor) of La Tuilerie de Chazelle? The name Marembeaud occurs most frequently; Bourgeon we have only encountered once. And maybe Bourgeon was someone who ordered a load of bricks and wanted his name engraved in them.

To tell the truth (Saint Nicholas) Dutch version

To paraphrase the old game show "To tell the truth": "Will the real Mr. Brickmaker please stand up?". However, that would be a resurrection from the grave, I am afraid….

Click here for the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Spelling, not the strongest point of the French

Variant 1 : Marambaud

One day we found an old marble, broken commemorative plaque, which was meant to be used in a church or a graveyard.

Variant 2 : Marembeaud

The name on the plaque was that of the man who, in the 19th century, built this house and started the brick factory. However, there was something strange with that name. The name on the plaque was "Noël Marambaud", while a number of bricks which were made here we founds the name of "Noël Marembeaud".
We drew the conclusion that the stone mason must have made a mistake, the plaque was refused by the family and ended up in two pieces somewhere on the corner of a shed.

Variant 2 : Marembeaud

One could consider the marble plaque to be a sort of printer's proof.
A roof tile made in our tuilerie also carried the name of "Noël Marembeaud"., which made the theory of the marble printer's proof quite likely.
Until we found a floor tile with a third variant: "Noël Marembaud".

Variant 3 : Marembaud

But this was not yet the end. This Mr. Marambaud, Marembaud or Marembeaud had a son who was killed in the first world war. In Chazelle's church a plaque can be found which states that a certain "René Marembeau" was killed February 26, 1916; with this we had a 4th variant on our hands.

Variant 4 : Marembeau

On the war memorial in Cormatin it says that a certain "Noël Marembaud" was killed in 1916. A far relative told us that there was only one son killed during the war, hence it is very likely that "René Marembeau" and "Noël Marembaud" are one and the same person.

Variant 3 : Marembaud

We were taught at school that Napoleon introduced the register office and registrations of births, marriages, etc. If this is true, I must admit that the Dutch made a far more thorough job of it than the French did, and still so after approx. a century!

Variant 3 : Marembaud (family grave Chazelle)

Click here for the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Checking out the competition

A lot of the people who are staying here, come especially for Taizé, reason why one might forget that there are more religions but the Christian.

Paldenshangpa La Boulaye

One of the things that has been on our list for a very long time was attending a service in the Tibetan Buddhist Temple in la Boulaye.
The temple in itself is a picture; such a colourful building is a rarity in these surroundings. It contrasts rather strongly against the rolling Burgundian hills. It is one of our favourite touristic outings during summer; the gallery overlooking the temple proper can be visited at a small fee, and that is certainly worth the effort.

The percussion section

Every day, at 9h00 and at 18h00, there are prayer services. The morning one is a bit on the early side for us (it takes 5 quarters of an hour to get there), but attending an evening service is doable.
The service started (very un-French!) at 18h00 spot-on. Although the temple was not packed, there were quite a few people present; my guess is that of all present approx. 25 % were tourists.

The altar

The others were either practising Buddhists or people taking part in Buddhist workshops that week. The main part of the service was taken up by a rather monotonous droning of mantras, half way interrupted by a period of silence, and at certain times accompanied by cymbals, a suspended drum, while a man not being part of the percussion section was blowing a shankha or conch.

Interior

It certainly was a special experience, and worth watching for those who have only seen or heard something like this in a movie. However, I think that your average Buddhist would say something identical about a Taizé service....

Prayer Book: no subtitles

Click here for the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Les Grandes Heures de Cluny

Program

As mentioned in a previous blog Cluny hosts during the summer, as part of a wine festival which has venues throughout the whole of Burgundy (Festival Musical des Grand Crus de Bourgogne), a concert series under the name of Les Grandes Heures de Cluny.
The various concerts take place in the cloister, the garden and the granary of the former abbey and in the church Saint-Marcel.

Farinier - interior

The granary or farinier is one of the former buildings of the abbey that hosts eight columns with beautifully carved capitals, placed around a marble altar, all originating from the old abbey church.
We had ordered tickets for Edgar Moreau, cello player and winner of the Victoire de la Musique (as promising soloist in 2013 and as soloist of the year in 2015), who was going to give a recital of the third and sixth suite by Bach and a sonata by Ligeti.

Our seats

On arrival we bumped again into the President of the festival and his wife, and again two seats had been reserved for us, on the third row this time.
About the concert itself we had conflicting opinions. My better half thought that he played Bach as if he had to catch the TGV to Paris, and she thought the changes in tempo within several parts of a suite too free, actually too jazzy.

Edgar Moreau

On the other hand, I enjoyed the concert, and I was not really bothered by the higher tempi (certainly compared to the CD I have of Fournier). This was most likely the last concert of the 2015 season we were going to attend; we are already looking out to the programs of the various concert halls in the vicinity for 1915-1916 and of the festivals for 2016.

Edgar Moreau

Click here for the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Looking for...

One of the walks around Dracy

On one of our quests in search of Romanesque churches we started to look for the former church of Dracy-lès-Couches (near Couches), or the remains there of. This is what we knew:
Dracy-lès-Couches : vieux-cimetière (East side): pans de mur, tombes. Church has been demolished and was replaced by a new one elsewhere; do not bother to go to the new church.
After having done some research we found that one of the signposted walks around Dracy was passing by this ex-church; we found the walk on the internet and we had even spotted some reference on a map to "Ruines Eglise". One would think that after this information the church should not be difficult to find….

The signpost

Based on the above we went to Dracy in July 2014, and lo and behold, we found a signpost saying "Ruines Eglise 300 m". We slithered down the path (it had been continuously raining for the last few weeks, turning the paths into mud covered tracks) and at approx. 300 m we stopped at a gate, with another very muddy path leading to the left and an overgrown bit of woods on the right. Since the paths were so impassable we decided to stop there, again trying to locate an old cemetery left or right from the path we walked down to go back to the car. No need to say that this did not reveal anything; we decided to wait for the dry season and go back again one day.

The signpost disappeared!

That day came, almost spot on, one year later. Our department had suffered from a severe heat wave for a number of weeks by then, without one drop of rain, hence the paths should be no problem this time. However, the pole where we had seen the sign "Ruines Eglise 300 m" was still there, but the sign had disappeared. Only the fixing clips were still there. The paths were no problem this time, and at what we thought to be roughly the 300 m point we took the path to the right for another 300 m, went back, then went down a dry ditch for 200 m, an turned back again.

The path is on the left, the shrubs with the church and graveyard are on the right

On the point where we had turned off to the left however, there was a heap of old stones on the right hand side, at the bottom of the slightly higher wooded area. I thought that this might well be the "remains" of the church, took a picture of it and was about to walk back to the car. My better half however is blessed with a bit more patience than I can muster, and she had disappeared in between the trees behind "my" heap of stones. After a few minutes she shouted "I found it!".

Tomb

When I climbed the low hill I saw her stooped over some gravestones, hence she had found the cemetery. From "my" heap of stones we then found the foundation of a wall running east-west, and following the foundation we indeed found some heavily overgrown small remains of what must have been the wall of the church. So we had finally found that church! One would say: and, was it worth it? That is debatable, but the picnic we had afterwards certainly was worth the trip!

Part of the church wall

Click here for the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Sortie Culturelle : Beajolais

Once a year the Touris Office of Saint-Gengoux-le-National organises a cultural outing.

Beaujolais

This year we were going to visit the Beaujolais, with on the program the Musée Claude Bernard in Saint-Julien-en-Beaujolais, the Château du Sou and its chappel in Lacenas, Oingt for a guided tour and for lunch, and finally the inevitable wine tasting at Domaine Boulon in Corcelles-en-Beaujolais.

Château du Sou

About the museum I can be brief; that was as far as I was concerned hardly worth getting off the bus for. The fact that the tour guides completely had forgotten about us after the first part of the visit did not really help.
The Château du Sou turned out to be a very charming building, and the owner, a British lady, gave us an interesting and animated tour around the premises.

Notre-Dame de Lacenas

To my big surprise we could visit, after we had seen the château and its chapel, the former church Notre-Dame. The building hosts a nice collection of frescoes, and despite the "No photographing" signs all over the place one could take pictures as long as the flash was disabled.

Les Pierres Dorées - Oingt

Oingt is classified as one of the most beautiful villages in France, and it lived up to its name. The houses built of gold-coloured sandstone justify the name of the "pays des pierres dorées"". The lunch we had for € 25 per head at "La Table du Donjon" was worth every penny of it.

La Table du Donjon - Oingt

Even though the Beaujolais is mainly known for its Beaujolais Primeur or Nouveau, it also produces good and affordable wines. We found the "Moulin à Vent" at slightly over € 6 a bottle an excellent wine.
And because the Beaujolais is actually just around the corner, we can warmly recommend a daytrip to this beautiful area!

Domaine Boulon - Corcelles-en-Beaujolais

Click here for the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Open air concerts

Saint-Pierre - Mâcon

Open air concerts have one major disadvantage: they are rather weather dependant. We realised that again when we decided to go to a concert on the square in front of the Eglise Saint-Pierre in Mâcon by the Mâcon Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eric Geneste. We had not been very lucky anyway that evening; halfway Cluny and Mâcon a truck got stuck on the part that is a two-lane road, hence the cars were alternately lead past the obstacle via the one free lane.

Brahms

Fortunately we had left home early enough, at least that is what we thought. After having been able to drive into Mâcon at normal speed we found out that the road through town had been closed, and the centre was a chaos of searching car drivers trying to find their way through the town. Still we were in time on the crime scene to arrest some seats on the last row.

Brahms

The musicians did not gather inside the church as was to be expected but elsewhere in town, hence we regularly saw some horn players, violinists or clarinettists wandering across the square towards the stage. Very un-French the concert started at 21h10 instead of 21h00 (normal would have been 21h30) with Brahms's Hungarian Dances no. 1, 4 and 5. The church behind the orchestra was colourfully illuminated, the music was very pleasant, in a word, the concert could not have started off better.

Dvořák

The fourth and last piece on the program was Dvořák's cello concerto with soloist Sung-Won-Yang. The first of its 3 parts was wonderful, but after the last notes had sounded it started to rain. The conductor announced, while the musicians brought their instruments into safety, that the concert would continue in 10 minutes time. However, since we had not brought any rain clothing and since it did not look like the rain would stop in 10 minutes, we decided not to get wetter than strictly necessary and drive home as dry as was possible.

Dvořák

Anyway, having heard this orchestra once, we will start looking for a program booklet for the next season, assuming that the orchestra also performs every so often under cover.
Click here for the website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle.