Alan Stivell
Biography

(this biography stops in 1995)

"As far as I'm concerned the music of the entire planet can be fused together. There are no limits !" - Alan Stivell.

The bard of Brittany ? A hero of the cause of Breton identity ? A sage of the new age ? A champion of the celtic renaissance ? A rediscoverer of the Breton harp ? A musical fusionist without equal ? An unrepentant modernist ? In his interviews and personal reflections, Alan Stivell has had a hard time separating his real self from the myths and claims that so many have built around him. For a musician whose inspiration comes not only from a deep feeling for his own particular cultural identity but also from a passionate interest in the struggles and aspirations common to all mankind, these confusions and eager misunderstandings are perhaps not very surprising.

There is one rock-hard certainty, however, that cannot be contested. Alan Stivell is a successful artist. You only need to cast a glance at his list of achievements to substantiate this claim; A Grammy nomination and a grand prix from France's prestigious Charles Cros Academy (for "Renaissance De La Harpe Celtique"), album of the year in the British music weekly Melody Maker (for "Chemins De Terre"), Italy's Tenco Award for musical achievement, the American Record Producers and Distributors' Indie Award (for "Harpes Du Nouvel Age"), 18 albums released of which 7 have gone gold, audiences that could be counted in their thousands in Rome, Milan, London an New York. For an artist that has always chosen to live and work in his native France (a country which has exported its native musical offerings only with great difficulty), all this is impressive. For someone whose music is as eclectic and deviant from the mainstream as Stivell's, it's downright stunning !

Alan Stivell was born Alan Cochevelou in 1944. His descendants were farmers from Gourin in lower Brittany who had emigrated, like many Bretons, to Paris. Alan's father was the remarkable Georges Cochevelou, translator, inventor and renaissance man whose lifelong ambition was to resuscitate the ancient Breton harp, an instrument that had in effect disappeared along with a politically independent Brittany at the end of the middle ages. After years of research Cochevelou Sr eventually produced a prototype harp with nylon strings which was elaborately decorated with medieval celtic motifs. With the help of his father and a classically trained concert harpist by the name of Mlle D. Mégevand, the young and musically precocious Stivell set about mastering the new instrument. With no surving repertoire, new arrangements of folk standards from Brittany, Ireland, Wales and Scotland had to be concocted for the harp. This lack of traditional harp repertoire was, in fact, a blessing in disguise because it obliged the Cochevelous to create a new language for the instrument by fusing a whole panoply of pan-celtic themes and melodies, a process that has endured ever since in Stivell's music.

Plucked by Stivell's youthful fingers, the reborn Breton harp was first presented to the world at the Brittany Centre in Paris 1953, when Stivell was only nine ! Shortly after, he joined the Paris based Bleimor Scouts, and quickly became part of their "bagad", a traditional Breton marching band inspired by the pipe bands of Scotland. A nascent curiosity about all things celtic prompted Stivell to learn to play the Bombarde, an oboe-like traditional Breton instrument and the Scottish bag-pipes. Throughout the middle and late fifties Stivell made numerous solo harp and voice appearances including one, when still only eleven years old, at the Olympia, the legendary Parisian concert hall. He followed this exploit by releasing his first recording of harp music.

Stivell took charge of bagad Bleimor in 1961 and turned it into the country's most successful bagad, winning traditional music contests and appearing at concerts and fest-noz (the Breton equivalent of the Scottish ceilidh dances) throughout the country , always accompanied by his compere Youenn Sicard. However it was soon evident that Stivell was not destined to remain in a narrow traditionalist musical mould. As well as broadening his knowledge of his own celtic roots by soaking up the music of the celtic world and studying both gaelic and english, he also became an avid fan of science fiction writers, comics and, of course, rock and roll. These influences were to blossom and endure throughout his career.

In 1966 Alan Cochevelou became Alan Stivell ("Stivell", meaning "spring" in Breton comes from a supposed etnymology Cochevelou "Kozh-Stivellou" which in turn means "spring") and began touring intensively, signing a recording contract with Phillips a year later. His first two Phillips albums "Reflets"(1970) and "Renaissance De La Harpe Celtique"(1971) reality got a surprising good response in France and nothern America.

"Stivell à l'Olympia" sold a staggering 1,500,000 copies and put both Stivell and Breton music on the cultural map once and for all. 1972, the year of its release, was one of radical ferment at home and abroad. The widespread revolt of May 1968 had generated a "back to the earth" movement amongst French students and intelligensia. The entry of Britain and Ireland into the EEC was seen by radicals in Brittany as the long awaited opportunity to bring the celtic nations together and make the ancient dream of celtic unity a reality. Alan Stivell was closely identified with these trends, even at times hailed as a champion of one or the other cause, but he was himself, as he often later claimed, uneasy about taking on the role of a musical freedom fighter. His deep fascination with cutting edge technology,

fuelled by his early love of science fiction put him a odds with any "back to the earth" idealism. Despite the hopes he shared with many of his fellow Breton for a celtic cultural revival and unity, he always sought to avoid being straight-jacketed by a narrow traditionalist outlook. In the sleeve notes to "Symphonie Celtique" he writes : "Whilst being a Breton national, I am also a CITIZEN OF THE WORLD. I try to express A WORLD WITHOUT FRONTIERS, which is at the same time culturally and ethnically diverse,....The tension between different influences and the preservation of differences is at the root of a creative dialectic. Let's not be scared of this process of evolution".

Following the success of "Stivell à l'Olympia", the remaining years of the decade were spent building a reputation abroad with tours throughout Europe, Canada and Australia. His next three albums all went gold ("Chemins de Terre"(1973), "E Langonned" (1974) and "Live In Dublin" (1975)). With the aim of achieving maximum control over his own productions, Stivell created his own label, Keltia III, in 1975.

One cause which Stivell never ceased to espouse with dogged enthusiasm was that of the celtic harp, an instrument which incarnated all his romantic and youthful dreams of celtic culture and identity. Way back in the early '60s he had been inspired by the clean sharp sound of Hank Marvin, the guitarist of the Shadows and this set him on a quest to design and build an electric hard-bodied harp. This quest embodied the deeper challenge of finding a balance between the traditional and the modern. In the sleeve notes to the 1985 album "Harpes Du Nouvel Age" he writes : "I have always been fascinated by the marvels and magic of cutting-edge technology, when it is in sympathy with humanity as a whole. They allow one to embark on an endless voyage into the future. At the same time, a cord which links me to my origins resonates in me... a complex passion for melodies of a pre-medieval kind which the celtic tradition has kept alive up until the 20th century. This duality - roots and modernism - has always been the basis of my music." The electric harp finally saw the light of day in the early eighties and was used extensively by Alan on "Harpes Du Nouvel Age". All in all Stivell has conceived over ten different harps and is currently putting the final touches to a midi-compatible harp/synthesizer on which he has been working for the best part of two decades.

Stivell's early creative development reached a climax in 1980 with the staging of his "Symphonie Celtique", with an orchestra of 300 musicians, in front of 10,000 spectators at The Festival Interceltique in the Breton sea-port of Lorient. This ambitious enterprise was a commercial and artistic success and it followed on from the 1979 relcase ot the "Symphonie Celtique" album, recorded with a smaller orchestra of 75 musicians. The "Symphonie Celtique" is the ultimate expression of everything Stivell felt about his celtic roots and their place in the wider cultural context. Today Stivell remains a passionate exponent of the celtic heritage and the depth of his knowledge about celtic history, language and music is very impressive.

Following the release of three more albums in the early' 80s on his Keltia III label ("Terre des Vivants"(1981), "Legende" (1983) and "Harpes du Nouvel Age (1985)), Stivell took leave of the limelight for a period of six years. The euphoria that had been generated by celtic revivalism and eco-hippy "back to the earth" idealism in the seventies was on the wane and as Stivell had, rightly or wrongly, been associated with these movements he also momentarily became a victim of the merciless ebb and flow of trends and fashions. He continued to work however, touring extensively in the USA where his popularity had been on the increase since the late seventies.

In 1987 Stivell signed a world-wide distribution deal with Disques Dreyfus, the French independent label that is home to such international success stories as Jean Michel Jarre. His first release under the new deal was a tribute to the most famous of celtic myths, the legend of King Arthur, entitled "The Mist of Avalon" (1991). This was followed in 1993 by "Again", a kind of reappraisal of his own career in which he reinterpreted some of his best known tunes with the help of wide assortment of guests including Kate Bush, Shane Mc Gowan, the uilleann pipe maestro Davy Spillane and african percussionist Doudou N'Diaye Rose.

Alan Stivell was back and fighting fit.

Having been one of the first to explore the benefits of cross-fertilising music from different cultures, Stivell felt perfectly at home with the concept of "world music" and sought to bring a wide variety of influences to bear on his own music. In an interview he said : "As far as musical fusion is concerned some fantastic things have been done, notably by Africans. My endeavours as a Breton are parallel to theirs because the problems we face are similar, just as they are similar to those faced by all non-European cultures. The celts find themselves in the position of possessing a non-European culture. They face the same questions that an African or a Burman might face; how far do roots go ? To what extent can one integrate diverse influences without losing one's soul ? Everyone finds their own solution."

Stivell's latest album "Brian Boru" (1995) is a perfect demonstration of these concerns. Having produced his records himself for many years, Stivell asked the ace French world music producer Martin Meissonnier, famous for his work with Papa Wemba, King Sunny Ade and Amina, to work with him on this record. Ten celtic standards were given an uncompromisingly modern and cosmopolitan treatment ranging from the epic grandeur of "Land Of My Fathers" (with a rousing accompaniment from a crowd of 15,000 welshman recorded at Cardiff Arms Park) to the bass- heavy rhythmic attack of "Let The Plinn" and "Sword Dance". Stivell has kept scrupulously faithful to his goal of constant creative renewal.

Stivell now faces the future as he always has, head on and with enthusiasm. The doors he helped to open back in the sixties and seventies have allowed several generations of Breton musicians to thrive. The music of that proudly independent people has never been in better shape and many successful young Breton artists owe part of their success to Stivell's groundbreaking creativity. Throughout the years his basic passions have remained the same; music, technology, roots and diversity. Now that music is developing in multiple directions with the help of new technology whilst artists rediscover both their own roots and the diversity of sounds all around them, it seems as if Alan Stivell is really coming into his own.

Andy Morgan.