The birth of RECORDARA
The association's name - a play on the past tense of the verb "recorder", the Spanish "se souvenir" and the English translation of recorder "recorder" - is easy to pronounce around the world.
RECORDARA was founded in 2015
All members of this 1901 non-profit association are volunteers. It all began with twelve years of observation by its founder and current president, Catherine Franco. musical heritage and the incredible beauty of the recorder - played according to the rules of the art - and her determination to support virtuoso recorder players facing great difficulties.
This is why RECORDARA - a non-profit charity whose members are all volunteers- has been organizing, since 2019, the International Early Music Fair/Festival Les Polyfolies de la Flûte à Bec et son Univers" at the beginning of October each year. In order to preserve and pass on to younger generations the exceptional heritage of the recorder and Early Music its Universe (9 musical eras out of the 11 that make up the History of Music), it is essential to support the virtuoso instrumentalists who tirelessly promote this magnificent instrument and this vast, rich and precious musical domain, witnesses to the power of study and work in the service of beauty.
This festival - which contributes to the cultural and educational dynamism of our country and our region and to the attractiveness of local business - represents a wonderful opportunity to delight recorder lovers and free this magnificent instrument from the degrading image it has endured for so many years. recorder lovers and to rid this magnificent instrument of the degrading image it has endured for so many years. It offers virtuoso recorder players the chance to come out of the dark, sad closet in which inadequate teaching prejudice and anathema have unjustly confined them. Invited to enter the world of the recorder, other instrumentalists are led to a better understanding of the richness and complexity of this fabulous tool, and to value it more highly. the richness and complexity of this fabulous instrument. A unique festival in terms of its charitable dimension and commitment to society, profits from the event are used to support a genuine action of solidarity, which is at the very heart of the company's commitment to the community. at the very heart of its commitment to virtuoso musicians in need.
This event is all the more remarkable for the fact that it receives no public subsidies, and the annual budget has to be financed entirely by private donations. It is the commitment of companies that enables this courageous to exist and survive!
Les Polyfolies de la Flûte à Bec et son Univers" is a veritable space for living culture, sharing, transmission and solidarity, as its profits are used for charity and to aid transmission. the general public to enjoy performances and magnificent concerts given by experts in the field, to take part in master classes and workshops, to attend lectures, interludes and concertini, to discover musicological research, to learn more about the flute and its universe, and to discover the world of the recorder. discover musicological research, meet the makers of ancient instruments (calascione, harp, dulcimer, psaltery, tympanum, recorder, harpsichord, violin, bow, lute, fiddle, nyckelharpa, oboe, cornetto cornet, guitar, theorbo, mandolin, vihuela...), those who devote a lifetime of study and work to providing musicians the world over with copies of the most appropriate historical instruments for interpreting the music of each era. the music of each era.
On this occasion, the association acquires instruments that respect the great traditions of instrument making, and makes them available to young virtuoso musicians in need, for a concert, a master class, a training course or a national or international competition. national or international competition. This gives them the opportunity to organize concerts in the spirit of the historical treatises of interpretation of each period they are studying or wish to develop. It also offers many other forms of support.
A committed association!
In the last three editions, RECORDARA has helped a young singer and violist, a violinist, provided the record library of a small music school with a collection of early music records, acquired two recorders to lend to a young ensemble, invited people who would never have dared or had the idea of coming to an early music festival, donated a tenor recorder to a music school and enabled young people to train and, in some cases, find employment.
