Words and Music

I've been neglecting both this blog and my music activities because I've been very focused the last few weeks on editing my first book, The Flower of Knighthood, and self-publishing it online. I took it to a conference in France and the preparation for that has been consuming me as well, but I got back home this past week and have been working on updating all of my sites and social networking to set the stage to move forward on all of my projects. I'm going to start focusing again soon on upgrading my computer system so it will be enabled for more comprehensive work on my music, and I've been doing some research on more music magazines to approach with my writing. I did attend an amazing music event in Rennes, the town I stayed in in Brittany, the most northwest region of France. The group was Diabolus in Musica, and they set the poetry of the trouvere Chretien de Troyes to music and performed it live with traditional Breton instruments and visual effects reminiscent of the illustrations in illuminated manuscripts. The show was about an hour long and free to attendees of the conference. It was part of a whole series of events sponsored by Rennes in association with an exhibit of King Arthur material at the Champs Libres, their local arts center, library and museum. Rennes is a college town and the capital of Brittany, and while it's relatively small, it's extremely cultured for a town its size. Brittany has a long Arthurian history, and the conference has been held in Rennes twice before, so they were happy to have the organization (the International Arthurian Society) back for another cycle.

http://www.diabolus-in-musica.net/english/indexframeen.html

http://www.leschampslibres.com/36392593/1/fiche___pagelibre/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennes

http://www.uhb.fr/alc/ias/version_ang/ang_historic.htm

On a musical note a little closer to home, but also fairly definable as diabolus in musica, I've been listening a lot lately to the two newest Nine Inch Nails albums, the instrumental Ghosts I-IV and the unorthodoxly released The Slip. Both are awesome, though some of the lyrics on The Slip are even more disturbing than the usual NIN. I'm going to a couple of the upcoming shows on the Lights in the Sky Over North America tour, and I'm looking forward to them. All of the NIN shows I've been to over the years were among the best live shows I've ever seen.