LIESKAN

New music from Brittany

Artistic Director: Erik Marchand

Lieskan is an original creation, simultaneously anchored in the vocal tradition of Brittany and resolutely contemporary in its approach. This project was born within the midst of the Kreiz Breizh Akademi (KBA), a musical training programme founded and directed by the singer Erik Marchand, which is aimed at young musicians aged between twenty and thirty-years-old. The teaching relies on the repertoire of Brittany’s folk songs – notably the call-and-response song (kan ha diskan) and the ballad (gwerz) – which are given a new life through musical arrangements that call on the rules of modal music performance.

This fresh take on the tradition developed naturally around the voice, thanks to the seven singers who delight in the play of improvisation and polyphonies. Orchestrated with knowledge and sensitivity, this music dresses itself in eclectic colours to create a rich yet demanding universe. In keeping with this, Lieskan performs music that is consistently surprising - causing us to marvel at times - and which never leaves the pubic indifferent.