Alan Stivell (born Cochevelou), the Celtic harp virtuoso who launched the passion for Breton music and Celtic folk more generally on a global scale by making it a European and world cultural phenomenon, returns to Folkest, where he held some memorable shows in the past.
Stivell, who together with his father Jord reconstructed and brought back the Breton harp in concert, is also considered a significant player of the bombard and Scottish bagpipes, created and popularized the concept of Celtic music, in an expanded concept of cross over music through the union of different cultures and musical styles, placing himself at the forefront of different genres from Folk-Rock to Ambient to World Music.
The concert that brought that musical movement to the height of fame was held fifty years ago, in 1972, at the Olympia in Paris: From those concerts came one of the most celebrated records in the entire world discography, Live a l’Olympia. From there the Stivell phenomenon changed the global image of Brittany and Europe’s concern for its ethnic minorities. His international career flourishes with appearances in festivals and television throughout Europe, the United States, Australia, Canada, to the present day. After the release of the album Legend and The Mist of Avalon in 1993, he remastered his most famous songs (featuring Kate Bush) on the album Again, which also relaunched him on the continental pop charts. Since then it has been a succession of new albums that from time to time moved the bar a little higher, thanks to this curious, observant, never tame artist who has always been at the forefront of defending minority rights.
