Word: aznavour
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...However Arabic or Russian the orchestrations, Jarre's music fit the plangent mood of French postwar pop: the mordant, worldly-wise chansons of Gilbert Bécaud, Marguerite Monnot, Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour. The simple melodies follow a clear ascending or descending line, and sound either inevitable or predictable, depending on the extent of the listener's fondness for the form. Jarre didn't write pop songs, exactly; "Lara's Theme" was his one Top 40 hit. But the sound was marketable in movies, and after Lawrence, Jarre's tinny, tinkly, discordant music was in high demand by directors searching...
France does have composers and conductors of international repute, but no equivalents of such 20th century giants as Debussy, Satie, Ravel and Milhaud. In popular music, French chanteurs and chanteuses such as Charles Trenet, Charles Aznavour and Edith Piaf were once heard the world over. Today, Americans and Brits dominate the pop scene. Though the French music industry sold $1.7 billion worth of recordings and downloads last year, few performers are famous outside the country. Quick: name a French pop star who isn't Johnny Hallyday...
...always tempting to define most French musicians by where they fit on the Chanson Française spectrum, that openly defined yet traditional Gallic brand of dramatic songcraft made famous by singers like Charles Aznavour and Edith Piaf decades ago. Is a band's m.o. to perform "chanson" with an ironic rock twist? Is that chanteuse doing classic chanson writ modern? It seems that French musicians can't just simply be musicians. But Keren Ann can, and she's not even French...
...June 28. What's the attraction? The young singer-songwriter is reviving an old French tradition: the chanson. Back in the 1960s, these nostalgic songs captured the hearts of music lovers with their emotion-charged lyrics and rousing delivery, sometimes, but not always, accompanied by the accordion. Charles Aznavour, Serge Gainsbourg, Françoise Hardy and others - with their haunting and spirited ballads of regret and doomed love - were in vogue around the world. Now, Delerm and artists like Keren Ann, Benjamin Biolay, Carla Bruni and Thomas Fersen are making chansons chic again. The new-old sound incorporates elements...
...Republic and Israel this week - Egoyan created a film within a film. His movie is a contemporary tale of two families' searches for truth and reconciliation as they struggle with uncertainty, insecurity and the legacy of denial. One central character is a Canadian-Armenian director named Edward Saroyan (Charles Aznavour) who is making a film about the genocide. To tell the story, Saroyan restages the siege of Van, near the Iranian border, where Armenians with old rifles held off Turks with modern artillery for weeks before being crushed. Though Ararat is actually 200 km from Van, the mountain periodically "drifts...