THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY: OUR FORESTS ARE BURNING MORE EVERY YEAR...
SUMMER 2022: THE ARCACHON BASIN IN FLAMES. HISTORY OF AWARENESS.
"How do you brake?" sang Alain Bashung...
I don't know, I don't want to give lessons because I too, in my own way, have indirectly participated in the contemporary environmental disaster. In the beautiful month of May 2022, I went to take advantage of a few days to admire the Arcachon basin, the Pilat dune, the tip of Cap Ferret, the surrounding oyster villages... Everything was beauty, peace, symbiosis with nature. Two months later, like you, I learned of the devastating disaster of the fires in Gironde (French south-west region) on the radio. And there, I become aware of all that is disappearing, but also of our ecocide madness. So yes I settle some personal accounts by scratching fictional characters inspired by my own professional or personal history in my song "La forêt brûle” (the forest burns). But I do not forget to include my own responsibility in the era of global warming. I wrote the song in August, recorded it as a draft right away.
Then I went to finalize the self-produced production in the studio in Paris on Saturday October 29th. I hope you will like the result and the message served by the intention... I put all my guts into it. By the way, a big thank you to Hervé Louradour, fan of Andy Summers who signs the guitar arrangements, Camille, sound engineer and Céline my singing teacher who helps me so much.
How tow act? :
It is useless to self-flagellate, or to accuse or blacklist such and such, we are all collectively more or less responsible. You just have to find a different way to walk in my humble opinion...
Of course there will be reforestation campaigns, plans decided on urgently, questions about the management of forests, their maintenance... But the heavy trend of mass fires is now established!
Perhaps we, musicians and performing artists, should consider favoring small concerts, in small venues, with light configurations in terms of sound and light? A drop in the ocean?
Maybe we should forget the more energy-consuming evening concerts? Energy sobriety applied to the entertainment world, we will not escape it any more than others. We must remain consistent, and walk the walk! I can't help but think of the fauna, flora and trees that went up in smoke during this deadly summer of 2022, when festivals were scheduled all over France and elsewhere. Don't get me wrong: I'm not questioning the wonderful cultural opportunities offered by concerts and festivals. But I wonder about their environmental impact. How to be more eco-responsible on a daily basis, especially when you know that today's decisions will have a concrete impact only in thirty years! That is to say, summer after summer, our forests will unfortunately be more and more exposed to mass fires with heat waves and significant rises in temperature.
I am very interested in this question by trying to have the broadest and highest possible vision, by documenting myself here and there. I particularly recommend the excellent interview of the historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz by the "Elucid" channel on Youtube (French speaking).
Pierre de Frebourg’s biography.
Pierre is French, born in Metz (close to the German border) in 1965, where he learned music at the conservatory. His father was a steel engineer, his mother played the harmonium at the temple and passed on the musical ear to him.
Music theory and piano, up to the age of fourteen, before replaying the Beatles by ear. With high school friends he composed and played in a rock group in the Lyon region, and also jazzrock near St Chamond in the Loire in the 1980s.
After arriving in Paris one evening in 1991, he discovered a wine bar where you could also listen to jazz musicians, just opposite his studio. There was a piano lying around in a corner on a platform, facing the guests seated. Waiter as an extra, Pierre played the piano for nine months after his service in the dining room, resuming Gainsbourg and Jonasz, as well as bossa-nova before beginning a long parenthesis of thirty years of musical abstinence during which his professional life l away from the piano.
Today after dropping everything, putting the costume away, he finally changes his life and takes up the piano, writing and composition again. A big leap into this era which reveals the fragilities of a world marked by uncertainties, and the urgency to take all the risks:
"I wouldn't like to die..." before living my life as an artist, as Boris Vian wrote.
"I jumped from the plane, with my guts hanging tightly to my belly..." (Faux cils).
A lover of film music, Pierre has boundless admiration for Lalo Schifrin, François de Roubaix and Michel Legrand. “A song is a short three-minute film, images suggested to the imagination loaded with emotions. Music is the vector of emotions. It must carry the text and stick to it to perfection, as Serge Gainsbourg knew how to do so well...”.
Bashung, Sheller, Dutronc father and son but also "M", “Feu! Chatterton”, “L'Impératrice” and Ben Mazué influence him, not to mention the many jazz standards that he listens to and deciphers with pleasure.
2022 is the year of a new start: "I'm not calculating anything, I'm going for it, we'll see!"
Contact Pierre de Frebourg on 0033 780-978-700 or at defrebourg@gmail.com