CHANTAL  BATLOGG
Accordion tuner

When Chantal arrived in our region, we are very lucky to have her because we have lacked an accordion tuner in the area.

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Born into a musical family, with a father who was a pianist and church organist, Chantal Batlogg always wanted to be a piano tuner.  When she reached the age to take up an apprenticeship, she tried to enter the only school which offered a qualification in piano tuning, the Institut Technologique Européen des Métiers de la Musique (Itemm), at Le Mans.  Unfortunately, at that time - pre-1980 - the Institute was not open to girls.

Chantal had to put a brave face on this and she turned next to watchmaking, a traditional métier in her home town of Morteau in the Jura (the town is also well known for a locally-produced sausage!), which utilised her meticulous eye for detail (there are also many tiny parts in an accordion).  By the time the Itemm was at last opened to female students, Chantal was too old to apply.  Not lacking in tenacity, she succeeded in gaining a place on a course for adults at the very prestigious Pleyel factory at Alès in the Gard, the last workshop producing pianos in France;  she stayed there for a year.  At the end of her training, in 1994, Chantal found an employer at Gaillard (between Annemasse and Geneva), for whom she worked for a number of years, and then another, and eventually she set up her own workshop at Burdignin where she had chosen to live. 

Having begun as a piano tuner, Chantal found herself accepting more and more accordions, chromatic as well as diatonic, for there was a great demand for tuners. Chantal, helped by Monique Vielle, knows how reveal and explain the workings of this traditional instrument whose pleats enchant our ears.

Contact:
chantal.batlogg-piano@orange.fr