Breton Folk Music

Breton folk music is the traditional music of Brittany, France's Celtic peninsula, sung in Breton and Gallo and played on biniou, bombarde, harp and fiddle. Its pillars are the gwerz, a long narrative ballad often recounting tragedy, the kan ha diskan call-and-response singing that drives fest-noz dancing, and the bagad pipe bands. Marginalized for centuries as French centralization suppressed the Breton language, it was spectacularly revived in the 1970s by *Alan Stivell* and *Tri Yann*, and its fest-noz gatherings are now inscribed on UNESCO's heritage lists.