The Chance to get a couple of days studying Hurdy-Gurdy with Gilles Chabenat at Gaunts House was to good to miss. I learnt an incredible amount in the small group (there were 3 of us) and having the opportunity to see Gilles playing and inprovise on stage was certainly hugely beneficial.
I attended music workshops at the Gaunts House Winter School over 4 days with Benoit Roblin, Gilles Chabenat, Julien Barbances and Lyset i Forsen the groups were very small and this made the learning process very quick and in depth. I also learnt to dance Scottische, waltz and Mazurka (thank you Jean for your remarkable patience). The Winter School is a nine day event which brought professional musicians, singers and dancers from all over Europe to provide a very rich and exciting program of dance and music workshops, concerts and bals. More info about the Emade organisation who put on the event can be found here http://www.emade.org.uk/winterschool.php the full programme is here programme winter school Gaunts House
I’ll provide details of the specific workshops and learnings in subsequent posts.
So far Hot Griselda, Eelgrinders, Tondo (Gilles Chabenat, Maarten Decombel, Fred Pouget), Ciac Boum, HRD, Lyset i forsen, trio Roblin/Evain/Badeau, Naragonia , Benoit Guerbigny, Julien Barbances, Rémi Geffroy, Gabriel Lenoir have confirmed their coming.
Dance workshop teachers include : Leif & Margareta Virtanen (Swedish dances), Anne-Cécile Dubois (tango and more), Maria Guerbigny (Lindy hop), Mike &Heidi Gibbs (rueda), Gabriel Lenoir (Dances from Wallony) & more (polska, Poitou, Bretagne, French mazurka…
The Folk Ball events and concerts were fantastic seeing top European Folk Musicians play in a dance context was invaluable. Dancing to the tunes they played a profound and deep level physical understanding of the function and dynamics of the music – magic!
Quentin Budworth Musician 