Festival Interceltique de Lorient 2024 – La Jeunesse des Pays Celtes
Carlos Nuñez in Concert: 15 August 2024
Grand Théâtre, Lorient
To paraphrase the military commander Enobarbus in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, “Age cannot wither him, nor custom stale his infinite variety”.
He has been described as “… the Jimmy Hendrix of the bagpipe” and the more years that pass under his evergreen creative genius and the longer his association with the Festival Interceltique de Lorient (le FIL), the more deeply connected to his adoring audiences is the virtuoso Galician musician Carlos Nuñez, master of just about every pipe and whistle known to man.
This year he returns to a Festival which has been slightly curtailed and delayed by the Paris Olympics, a six-day musical bonanza dedicated not to a specific nation but rather to the youth of the Celtic world. Even in this restricted form it drew some 650,000 festival-goers to over 300 concerts and events.
Nuñez is one of the acknowledged stars of the FIL. He calls it the greatest festival in the world and the roar in response suggests that the feeling is mutual. With his customary generosity of spirit and unflagging energy, he welcomes onto the stage the young pipers and bombarde players of the Bagade Jeunes Sonerion with their distinguished tutors Hevré Le Floc’h and Jean Louis Henaff.
Their arrival and youthful presence light up the second half of the two-hour programme, bringing the audience to its feet in a massed fest noz which nobody wants to end.
It is a joyous climax to a concert which begins more formally, with a performance of selected segments from Nuñez’s new album Celtic Sea, commissioned by Brittany Ferries, the company which has been linking travellers from Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, Galicia and Asturia to Brittany for some 50 years.
“The unique region we call home spans the Celtic lands of Europe, so when crafting a new musical identity, it was clear that the music would naturally embody the spirit of Brittany Ferries. In Galician musician Carlos Núñez, we knew we had found the perfect partner for this endeavour”, says Christophe Mathieu, CEO, Brittany Ferries.
The result is Celtic Sea, an homage to the music and seafaring history of the lands which face onto the Atlantic. It is described by Nuñez as “… a voyage not just into the music of the Celtic regions, but also a voyage through time.
“This new music represents our philosophy of life, linked to the inter-Celtic spirit that leads to Brittany, the geographical centre of all Atlantic Celts. Brittany Ferries is continuing a 10,000 year old tradition of exchanges across the Celtic Sea.
“I have experienced the magical sensation of travelling these sea routes and it is from that magic that this album was born, like a journey.”
Alongside Nuñez – and performing with him on the album – is a line-up of some of the finest exponents of modern day Celtic music. The joy of playing together is instinctive and infectious. On drums is his brother Xurxo Núñez; on guitar is Pancho Álvarez from Pontevedra in Galicia; on fiddle is the vivacious María Sánchez from the Catalan city of Barcelona; on accordion is the enchanting Itsaso Elizagoien from the Basque region; Breton harper Bleuenn Le Friec performs on both the classical and traditional wire-stringed harps; and from the Ottawa Valley of Ontario, comes fiddle player Jon Pilatzke, whose muscular hard-shoe step dancing brings down the house at Lorient, much as it does in his regular appearances with The Chieftains.
At the centre of the action is Nuñez himself, a musical sorceror, coaxing all kinds of spine-tingling sounds from this exceptional assembly of players and raising the roof when he cuts loose on the black-fringed Galician gaitas of his native land. So integrated is the sound, as they journey from one Celtic nation to the next, that one has the distinct impression that they could find and follow each other in the dark, as long as their charismatic leader is at the front.
By the end, the packed house inside Lorient’s Grand Theatre is on its feet. Some audience members are on stage, others are snaking through the auditorium in an explosion of Breton dancing, mobile phones are flashing, arms are raised in salute. It’s the party to end all parties. It’s Carlos Nuñez at the Lorient Festival. There’s no more to be said. “À la prochaine, Carlos – until the next time”.
The 2025 Festival Interceltique de Lorient will run from 1 to 10 August and will be dedicated to American Celtic cousins across the Atlantic.
The Even Hand 