Breton Celtic Folk Music

Breton Celtic folk music is the traditional music of Brittany, the Celtic region of north-west France, centred on the biniou kozh and bombarde reed pair, the Celtic harp, flutes, fiddle and accordion. Its repertoire comprises gwerzioù, long narrative laments, sonioù, lyrical songs, and the dance music of the fest-noz, performed in Breton, Gallo and French. Suppressed for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it was revived from the 1950s by the bagadoù pipe-band movement and transformed in the 1970s by *Alan Stivell* and *Tri Yann*, who carried Breton material into folk-rock while keeping its modal melodies and dance rhythms intact.