Trouz Bras: Making a Big Noise with the Breton Boys
I love craigslist . You can log on looking for basement shelving and come away with a cat and a band. At least that's what happened to me. I adopted Cleo the Maine coon cat, and was in my turn adopted by Trouz Bras , "the only band in North America devoted to the music and dance of Brittany." A week after my audition with Ray Price and Barry Hall, I found myself on stage at Passim, making my debut at the Boston Celtic Music Festival with a French sea chantey. Le Capitaine de St. Malo lived up to the band's name--Trouz Bras means Big Noise in Breton--and I'm delighted to find myself singing call-and-response with a bagpipe. Not to mention a jazzy medieval vielle, a rockin' bass, and the USA's first NEA Master of the Bodhrán. These guys have some chops. For my first official gig with TB at the Dance Flurry, I have 3 weeks to learn 9 songs in a language I don't speak. What fun! The dance songs are a joy, drawing on my experience as a dancer and dance le