August: Musique et Nature en Bauges

With the unpredicability of the weather with which France has been afflicted this summer, the day in the Ardeche started out pouring. We run for the overpass to the restaurant for lunch on the auto route.

Today's athletic event: contact Frisbee

The sun came out as we came upon the Massif des Bauges.

You can see our hotel in Aix-les bains behind the Marina on the Lac Bourget...From the southern beauty of Labeaume to this - amazing!. The consensus is that every corner of France is beautiful.

What can we say? There was a regatta for children in progress when we arrived. We took advantage of the sunny moment to walk and run along the lake.

The Eglise du Chatelard is a 40 minute drive through the monumentally beautiful Savoie countryside - verdant valleys surrounded by the Massif des Bauges. By the time we arrived, clouds were gathering and it poured just before the concert.

Once it was full, the church had a beautiful resonant sound which we enjoyed. The audience was quiet and attentive and then very vociferous in its approval. As with other places in France, the moment of intense complicity with the audience during Poulenc's "Quatre petites prieres de St. Francois d'Assise" will be something we long remember. In order to realize the festival's theme of Music and Nature we adapted our program, including the European premiere of Janika Vandervelde's "All Things Resounding." We introduced this work last fall; it was commissioned for us by the Jerome Foundation in memory of Maud Hill Schroll who was a great lover of nature. It was an all -time record night for us at the CD table - we're now completely out of many titles. Another very special evening.

The Mayor of the Commune of Le Chatelard toasts us at a dinner after the concert. We had sausages and potatoes gratin, and Tome des bauges with the mayor and mayors of other villages in the commune, the Director of the great Parc Naturel Regional du Massif des Bauges (which we didn't have time to see this time), and the volunteers of the festival.