'Les Campagnards'

A French Music and Dance Group

Les Campagnards is a French music and dance group comprising Alan Keith, Gary Breitbard, Peter Tommerup and Jena Rauti.

The melodies and songs presented by the group have been gathered from both traditional and popular sources in France. The tunes played, include a mixture of popular ballroom dance types - waltzes, polkas, schottishes and mazurkas, along with regional dances - bourrees, rondos, bransles and fandangos. The songs, including many well-known and popular ones from Paris, are about the usual subjects of love, rejection, war, drinking and dancing, and can be in English as well as the French language.

The instruments used, are a mixture of traditional French - cornemuses (French bagpipes - see Alan's Instrument Collection - Bagpipes) and vielle à roue (hurdy-gurdy), and popular ones - diatonic (button) and chromatic (piano) accordions, and violin.

The Members

Gary Breitbard started music at an early age and excells in the playing of many folk i nstruments and musical styles. His instrumentation includes piano and diatonic accordions, fiddle, guitar, banjo, mandolin, hurdy-gurdy, and piano-forte. He also sings and is a dance teacher and caller. His folk music playing styles include Celtic, French, Italian, German, E. European, Balkan, French-Canadian and Old-Timey American.

Jena Rauti

Peter Tommerup

Alan Keith has been playing music since grade school and professionally since high school. With over 35 years of folk and traditional music experience, he has collected, built and learned to play in excess of 30 instruments. Although his main instrumentation consists of various bagpipes and accordions, he plays a number of other wind and percussion instruments as well. Alan has either lead or been a member of over twenty different folk ensembles. He is presently a member of three groups and performs numerous solo engagements as well. Alan is featured on Le Soleil's recordings Le Soleil and Bal Folk en Californie, on French Creek's Fait en Californie, and on Tour de France's Music of the French Provinces. (See Recordings For Sale for offerings and further information.)

Barbara Sloan (special guest musician)

Les Campagnards recent notable performances include:

• International Language Festival, Dept. of Humanities, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
• Bing Music Series, Stanford Hospital, Stanford, CA (ongoing)
• John Cage's Music Circus, Dinkelspiel Dept. of Music, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
• "Slow Food" Cooking Event, Copia Center, Napa, CA

Booking Information

Back to Alan's Biography