SONNEURS

  • Sunday, 4 May 2025

    2:00 pm

  • LESS and surrounds

    Dairy Road Precinct, Fyshwick, ACT

  • General Admission $free,

    Concession $free

  • In Association with

Set in Canberra’s striking contemporary pavilion, LESS, this free outdoor event offers a unique fusion of tradition and modernity. A quartet of French pipers will bring vibrant energy to this brutalist yet majestic structure, nestled within the reimagined industrial landscape of Dairy Road in Fyshwick. 

The program includes a series of carefully curated contemporary works for pipers, culminating in a large-scale participatory work for wind, bagpipes, and brass players, created by renowned composer Otomo Yoshihide. 

SONNEURS blends tradition and innovation through its distinctive quartet, featuring the biniou, bagpipe, bombard, and trelombard. Known for its raw, resonant sound and rich tonal colors, this ensemble introduces these culturally significant instruments into a contemporary setting. Led by master French piper Erwan Keravec, SONNEURS offers a fresh, powerful perspective on traditional sounds, inviting audiences to experience folk-inspired compositions in a groundbreaking new way. 

Designed by Pezo von Ellrichshausen, LESS is located at Dairy Road, an innovative industrial neighborhood surrounded by nature, set at the edge of a wetland habitat. 

ARTISTS

Erwan Keravec has set up a piping quartet that brings together the four instruments of the Breton piping tradition, starting with the historic bombard and biniou koz and including the Scottish bagpipe, which has become Breton over the last century, and the trelombard, invented to act as a counterpoint to the bombard and bagpipe in bagadou (plural of bagad: Breton piper bands). With its culturally-marked instruments, this quartet is characterised by its raw sound, rich tone colour, continuous biniou and bagpipe resonance, condensed spectrum and, obviously, powerful sound.

Erwan Keravec – artistic director & bagpipes
Mickaël Cozien – biniou koz
Erwan Hamon – bombard
Guénolé Keravec – trelombard

plus local musicians

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Free event

Photo credit – Atelier_Marge_Design (pipers)

Click here to BECOME A MEMBER.

 

  • Sunday, 4 May 2025

    2:00 pm

  • LESS and surrounds

    Dairy Road Precinct, Fyshwick, ACT

  • General Admission $free,

    Concession $free

ARTIST Learn more about the artist

Artist Erwan Keravec - highland bagpiper, composer and improviser

READ MORE
Erwan Keravec is a highland bagpiper, composer and improviser. In seeking out the more unusual sounds, and ways of playing and listening to his instrument, far from its original cultural setting, he is exploring improvised music, free and ‘noise’ jazz, and establishing a repertoire of contemporary music for solo pipes, trio with solo voice and with choir. With an interest in movement and in settings associated with reinvention, he also writes, plays and improvises for dance.
Since 2007, he has pursued his quest for a style of piping that’s removed from its original setting, with the projects Urban Pipes I (2007) and Urban Pipes II (2011). To make his intentions clear, he commissioned composers to write solo pieces for the instrument as part of the Nu Piping series (since 2011). So far, he has been behind 19 works by 17 composers. For the quartet SONNEURS, he commissioned 12 pieces. This research will lead to IN C // 20 PIPERS (2022) and 8 PIPERS FOR PHILIP GLASS (2024).

Go to Artist's Page