The1997 Midsummer Revels returned to the glorious outdoor amphitheatre of the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts for two special performances celebrating the summer solstice. Performances were held Saturday and Sunday, June 21st and 22nd at 3pm.
This year's Midsummer Revels traveled North, into Eastern Canada and the Maritimes for a special French Canadian program featuring lively and traditional music, rituals, step dancing and folk tales. Largely influenced by French and British territorial settlers, French Canadian culture is enormously rich and vital. Sharing their music, songs and stories will be a pair of exceptional Québecois musicians, Benoît Bourque and Gaston Bernard who were joined onstage by Cape Breton fiddler and local favorite Joe Cormier. Besides being a top-notch accordion player, musician-dancer Benoît Bourque is widely acknowledged as one of the world's finest improvisational percussive dancers and a master of "kitchen music" (using bones and spoons for instruments!). His partner, Gaston Bernard plays a number of instruments with equal aplomb including fiddle, mandolin and guitar. As a duo they have played at numerous international festivals, investing their energies in reinvigorating the music and dance of their heritage.
Set at the turn of the century during "Les Feux de Saint Jean" (The Fires of St. John), a Midsummer feast involving maypoles and bonfires, this French Canadian Revels also featured the 50-member Revels Chorus of adults and children and plenty of audience participation, a Revels hallmark.
midsummer97 Since March 17, 1996
Updated Tuesday, January 23, 2001
url http://sheldonbrown.com/org/revels/midsummer96.html