Festival de Cornouaille

The Festival de Cornouaille (or just Cornouaille Kemper) is an annual festival taking place in the city of Quimper, located in the south-west of Brittany (France) in July (close at the 4th Sunday of the month). The festival has been held since 1923 and is one of the biggest cultural events in Brittany.
The festival putting forward the Breton culture in its diversity and its richness. About 180 shows, concerts and animations take place in the day and in the evening in the urban heart of the city of Quimper: "a festival in the heart of a city and a culture".
History.
From 1923.
The festival was founded in 1923 as a sort of beauty contest ; The idea was to choose the most beautiful girl in the region and crowned queen of the festival . hair To the so-called Festival des Reines continued to dress the Breton bards Taldir, Jaffrenou and Botrel were present, as were the folk dancers Plozévet. After the pageant, accompanied by piano and violin, was a dinner for 300 guests, and the festival ended with a grand ball, where the gavotte was mixed with the Charleston. The festival continued in this form until 1947.
From 1945.
The festival was not held for a few years, through the Second World War, but after 1945 there was a need for . In 1947 the "Qeens Festival" was renamed "Les grandes Fêtes de Cornouaille". The first Fêtes was a four-hour folk festival, focusing on the Breton tradition .
In 1948 a 16 - year-old girl was elected festival queen, which had a lot of criticism from the Roman Catholic Church as a result. Since 1949, there is then no longer elected festival queen and the party has an emphatic folkloric character . It is the festival that year expanded from one day to one week . In the 50s, the festival has developed into the leading festival of Breton culture .
For 1992, the famous guitarist Dan Ar Braz, who comes from Quimper, was asked to organize musical part of the festival : this resulted in the Héritage des Celtes project, in which 70 Celtic musicians worked together. The project was a success and resulted in a number of albums under the name "Heritage des Celtes" on.