Yann-Fañch Kemener
Maestro of Breton Music
How would you paint a picture of Yann-Fanch Kemener? You would show a bard ready for battle, willing to do anything to raise the Breton colours high and to make sure that this region’s music is recognised as a musical style in its own right across the four corners of the globe.
Rock ‘n’ roll, free jazz, new wave, bossa nova, punk rock, kan ha…disco? Kan ha diskan, a musical style strongly rooted in the Breton musical soundscape in which melody and counter melody play off each other, owes much to Yann-Fanch Kemener. This traditional singer-cum-ethnomusicologist from the Côtes-d’Armor is, together with his buddy Erik Marchand, effectively one of the key players in giving this genre a new lease of life in the 70s and 80s.
Recognition came early, when the boy from Sainte-Tréphine won the 1977 ‘Kan ar Bobl’, a competition celebrating artists dedicated to conserving and passing on the area’s heritage, which has served a springboard for plenty of Breton artists.
They are easily recognisable from that gesture that is so characteristic - the famous hand held to the ear as if the singer is trying to catch their own echo – and there can be no doubt that kan ha diskan owes a huge debt to these crusaders for the Breton tradition. One of the crusaders is the knight Yann Fanch Kemener with his highly distinctive voice.
