Georges Cochevelou discovered and reconstructed the Celtic harp of the Middle Ages, and, along with his harpist son Alan Stivell, was responsible for its revival in Brittany in the 1950s.
15 Facts About Georges Cochevelou
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Georges Cochevelou was born on 16 May 1889, in the rue Vercingetorix of the 14th arrondissement of Paris.
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Georges Cochevelou's father was a native of Nouec Vihan in Gourin, and his mother of Pontivy.
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Georges Cochevelou was raised for some years by his maternal grandmother in Moustoir-Ac, and lived in Morbihan until he was thirty years old.
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Georges Cochevelou was raised as a speaker of Gwenedeg before he became a soldier in World War I Georges Cochevelou was wounded and taken prisoner in Germany in 1917.
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Georges Cochevelou was a winner in the Lepine competition for several artistic works: he made an "astignometre", created a table lamp, built furniture like a cabinetmaker and painted in an original technique "of water-color in oil" on panels of hardboard painted in white, which were shown at an exhibition of independent artists at the academy of Raymond Duncan.
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Georges Cochevelou gave birth to their son, Jean, in December 1935.
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Alan Stivell 8.
Georges Cochevelou eventually found employment in Chatel-Guyon where his family lived until autumn 1945.
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At that time Georges Cochevelou was working as an English interpreter and contract employee for the Ministry of Finance where he translated documents to French from English, Russian, Polish and Spanish.
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Georges Cochevelou lived for five years in a small apartment on the boulevard of Belleville.
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Georges Cochevelou adopted ideas appropriate to the right-wing middle class, despite he and his family having relatively low incomes.
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Georges Cochevelou tried to recreate the Celtic harp, an instrument forgotten when the Duchy of Brittany lost its independence, at the end of the Middle Ages.
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Georges Cochevelou created, in April 1953, "Telenn gentan", a harp model equipped with nylon strings.
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Georges Cochevelou produced about twenty copies which in the Celtic circles of Saint-Malo, Pontivy, Redon.
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Georges Cochevelou's wife died on 26 September 2005 in Limeil-Brevannes at the age of 102.