L’armée du Chalut

The Army of Chalut brings together seven characters: the Bretons Bernard Subert, Gaël Rolland and Didier Quéval; the Fécampois Pascal Servain; Maurice Artus from Vendée; Guadeloupean Césaire Berchel; and Michel Colleu, the most Le Havre of the Douarnenists.

Briscards of traditional music, bell ringers of festoù-noz, leaders of windlass songs and other songs to hoist, singers of grumbling sailor compositions…but also tellers of moving laments on the misfortunes of life at sea or on distant voyages to the “Isles”, storytellers, collectors and specialists in the oral traditions of seafarers, the “singing sailors” of L’Armée du Tralut bring to life the songs on board the whalers, codfishers, herring boats, long-haulers or sailors of the Royal .

“The singing crew” will share its vast repertoire with you: of course the many songs collected by Michel and Pascal in the maritime district of Fécamp from sailors who have sailed on working sailboats or deep-sea fishing trawlers, or from workers in the smokehouses and workshops, but also many others, learned over the course of encounters in the islands – Yeu, Sein or Groix, without forgetting the archipelago of Guadeloupe and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon! – in the ports on the Atlantic coast, or in the large neighboring port of Le Havre. Their CD is entitled Pêcheurs de chants: embark with them, the fishing will always be good! Several of the group’s singers have received the Capitaine Hayet Trophy (1998, 1999, 2015, 2017).