🌍 World Music — Breton

Breton music relies on emblematic instruments such as the biniou kozh and the bombarde, often played together in pairs, as well as on bagadoù, ensembles combining bagpipes, bombardes and percussion. The fest-noz, a collective dance gathering listed as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, keeps dances such as the gavotte, the an-dro and the hanter-dro alive. Call-and-response singing, notably kan ha diskan, traditionally accompanies some of these dances, while the gwerz is rather a sung narrative, often solemn or tragic. Since the revival of the 1950s-1970s, Breton musicians have frequently combined these forms with folk, rock, jazz or electronic music, without interrupting their popular transmission.