About Brocelïande
The three members of Brocelïande are well-known multi-instrumentalists and singers, known for beautiful arrangements of traditional music on rare instruments and warm and inviting stage shows. Their music includes upbeat dances, lovely ballads, and exciting a capella madrigals. Their evocative lyrics, including some in Medieval French and Portuguese, speak of love and longing, quests and revels, magic and transformation.
Brocelïande has performed throughout the West Coast, in concert series, festivals, colleges, radio shows, and private functions. They specialize in seasonal fare, honoring the elements of Nature and celebrating the human experience, and their delight is to uplift their audiences and provide a sonic sanctuary for a time.
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Margaret Davis
Vocals * Celtic Harp * Flute * Recorders
Margaret is the leader and founder of Brocelïande. She grew up in Illinois where she was classically trained as a flutist and recorder player and received degrees in Music and French from Knox College. Margaret brings her academic knowledge of the music of the troubadours to Brocelïande, and in the group she sings in French, Medieval French, Latin, Provençal, Gallician Portuguese, Gaelic, Spanish, and English. She studied voice with vocal coach Lillian Loran and performed for 6 years as singer and harper with the Medieval band Gai Saber. A life-long interest in her Scots Celtic ancestry led to work with the Celtic bands Magic Fire, Four Shillings Short and Avalon Rising, with whom she has recorded the albums Magic Fire, Now, Avalon Rising, Storming Heaven, and The Starlit Jewel. Her solo album, Princess of Flowers, features the other members of Brocelïande on backups. Margaret's interest in music as a healing modality has led to work with Oakland's Healing Muses, Stanford Hospital's Music for Healing Program, and with Vision Journey Facilitator Britt Nesheim. Margaret is past Chairman of the Board of the Bay Area Folk Harp Society and she currently co-runs independent record label Flowinglass Music with her husband Kristoph Klover.
Kristoph Klover
Vocals * Guitars * Octave Mandolin * Oboe
Kristoph sings tenor with Brocelïande, plays 12-string and 6-string guitar, octave mandolin, and oboe, and writes original music performed in the band. Prior to his work with Brocelïande, he studied vocal technique with James Schwabacher and Edwin Barlow and appeared with the Marin Opera. Kristoph is a past member of the Celtic bands Magic Fire and Four Shillings Short and currently leads Celtic rock band Avalon Rising, in which he sings lead vocals and plays lead guitar. Kristoph's original music can be heard on the CDs Magic Fire, The Starlit Jewel, To Touch the Stars, Avalon Rising, and Storming Heaven, and in the films The Valley of Fear and Far From the Sea, of which he produced the soundtracks. He has worked with singer/songwriter Cynthia McQuillin as co-producer, arranger and performer. He is co-owner and recording engineer of independent record label Flowinglass Music, and in this capacity he has worked with Grammy-winning harpist Janet Harbison, 5 times all-Ireland concertina champion Gearóid ÓhAllmhuráin, many others.
Kris Yenney
Cello * Nyckelharpa * Hardanger cello d’Amore * Vocals * Percussion
Kris Yvon Yenney ~ cellist, conductor, composer, teacher and impresario ~ has a M.M. degree in cello performance from New England Conservatory of Music, and has also studied at Juilliard, Tanglewood, the Banff Centre for the Arts, Chisti Sabri School (Jaipur, India) and Sabhol Mor Oistag, (Skye, Scotland). She has performed extensively with several Bay Area ensembles, from the San Jose Symphony and Opera orchestras to the Left Coast Ensemble (San Francisco), in the pit orchestras of West Bay Opera and TheatreWorks, in the Schola Cantorum orchestra, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, Espressivo and more. She has collaborated in performances and in recording sessions with numerous composers and singer-songwriters… Like her Brocelïande bandmates, Kris played with the early iteration of the now dynamic touring duo, Four Shillings Short. She is an award-winning composer, a beloved music director to generations of young virtuosi (Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra) and she helmed the merry “M’EarthTones” choir for 20 years, before relocating to Ashland, Oregon recently. There she continues to perform and teach cello and chamber music privately. She has also founded and is Artistic Director of the acclaimed “Cage Free Concerts” series, presenting world class touring groups from across the States, Canada, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, and Scandinavia. Kris can be heard on numerous recordings ranging from classical to Celtic to jazz. Highlights of her musical life have included presenting a private Quintet performance with Yo-Yo Ma and the Boston-based New England String Quartet (NESQ), performing and recording with jazz pianist Fred Hersch, studying and accompanying Terry Riley in a concert of Classical Northern Indian Raga in Delhi, India, playing with Alasdair Fraser's fiddle class on the Isle of Skye, and sitting in with the likes of Lyle Lovett, Smokey Robinson and Rod Stewart. She works with teachers and performers in the growing field of sound healing, having studied with Don Campbell and others… Kris likes to explore both her Celtic and Scandinavian roots <http://www.vasen.se/> and tackles the mysterious Swedish nyckelharpa now and again. For more about Kris, see www.cellosopher.com
PAST MEMBERS:
Karl Franzen
Guitar * Octave Mandolin * Vocals * Whistle * Melodeon * Percussion
Karl left Brocelïande in 2009 to pursue other musical interests, and he passed from this plane in 2019. He can be heard on Brocelïande's first 6 CDs. Karl became interested in music growing up in rural Massachusetts. He taught himself harmonica at age 8; he learned guitar from singing nuns shortly thereafte and then sang and played guitar in folk masses and with friends in Massachusetts. He was influenced by recordings of the Newport Folk Festivals at an early age and then studied guitar with East Coast guitarist Phil Cooper. He began playing Irish music in college and taught himself mandolin at that time. Karl played guitar with a progressive band at MIU in Iowa and continued with folk music in California, learning whistle, melodeon, and doumbek along the way. He played with Broceïiande from its inception in 1999 until 2009, and he also played with Carol Hunner, First of May, Four Shillings Short, Nancy Cassidy, Alan Keith, Maxina Ventura, Gary Breitbard, Harmon's Peak, Luceo, Mr. Barky, and Slainte of SF Bay. In addition to performing, he also taught guitar, created websites, and did graphic design. He appeared on the albums For Earth and Her People, Up From the Bog, Incantation, The Starlit Jewel, Along Celtic Lines, To Touch the Stars and many others.
