EN CORS EN CHŒUR

Five musicians, all dressed in grey, will wait for you on the heights of Plaines-Joux on Saturday and Sunday. They all wear long shepherd's cloaks to remind that the horn was initially used by the cowherds, either to communicate from one side of the Alpe to the other, from a mayen of the adret to a mayen of the ubac, or to gather the animals for the evening milking. It is well known that cows love music. Well, play an instrument in front of them and you will see them running to you.

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For our festival, the Chambéry band Echo de Sabaudia”, which reshaped in time from an original ensemble of 5-6 musicians to a trio, changing their identity as a band and becoming En Cors en Chœur, merged exceptionally with the three horn players of Maurienne, the Sonneurs du Sapey.

Quand En Cors en Choeur était encore l’Echo de Sabaudia

President of both the band and the Association En Cors En Chœur, Gilles Bernard is an amateur musician since childhood. He plays the euphonium and the tuba in several orchestras all over France, according to his professional trips. As he is a mountain lover, the switch to the alphorn was a natural step for him and gave him the chance, as he says, “to make the mountains summits sound”.

His Facebook page is entirely dedicated to hikings activities in the mountains, including beautiful pictures of tracks and trails.

Co-founder of En Cors En Chœur, Jean Michel Sirand is a lawyer. He has discovered the horn walking a steep Swiss road and he has fallen in love immediately. He skipped the musical theory, which he doesn’t know, to tame directly the instrument and play with the echoes that the mountains give back, there, on the solitary summit.

His research on mountain resonance brought him to the Himalaya where he played with Buddhist monks (maybe with the radong, a four-meter long trumpet).

Jean Paul Valet comes from a family of musicians. He held his first trumpet between his hands since he was 10. He has a very busy musical life in different orchestras and musical ensembles. He plays the alphorn since 2003 in various bands. Currently he divides himself between En Cors En Choeur in Bassens near Chambéry and Les Sonneurs des Montagnes in Jarrier near Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne.

Marie Laure Bouvier is a member of Les Sonneurs des Montagnes as well. She has been playing horn since 2014. Her major passion is music. She loves to sing and to make people sing along with her guitar, moreover she teaches oboe! She also divides herself between various orchestras both as musician and conductor.

Gérard Valet is an amateur musician since he was a child. He, as well as Marie, started playing the alphorn in 2014 with the band Les Sonneurs des Montagnes. He also plays the trumpet and the horn in several orchestras and in a harmony that he directs.

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Lac d’Aiguebelette

Saturday and Sunday all day long

En Cors en Chœur will hold a workshop of alphornf of both beginners and pros on Saturday

Contacts : encorsenchoeur@gmail.com