Fine French Orchestra at Pittergarden

It's impossible not to be charmed by Fint Fransk Orkester. These guys are so French to their virtuoso fingertips that they could make the most arrogant waiter in Lyon blush with embarrassment. So if you haven't just been to Paris, this is the closest you'll get to Montmartre. With style, elegance and humour, they'll take you deep into the French chanson tradition and introduce you to a unique world of original songs and colourful characters.

The orchestra offers chansons and cabaret, string swing and hip hop, cœur et douleur (heart and pain), freshly polished trombone and newly tuned accordion, beautiful solo singing and delicious duets. But first and foremost, it's about the biggest and most important thing of all, AMOUR! And it's almost impossible not to fall in love. The repertoire includes tunes and lyrics penned by the orchestra itself, in classic chanson style, but expect a cornucopia of musical expressions: Traditional ball musette and chanson, blues that begins where Tom Waits ends, string swing and slick 70s fusion, bossa nova and cumbia that take you to a tropical rainforest, only to suddenly end up in a small village in Eastern Europe at a steamy Balkan party. Virtuosic and playful, beautiful and elegant, from what is probably the only original French-language band in Norway.
As the French Embassy in Oslo says about the orchestra: "Le plus norvégien des groupes français ou le plus français des groupes norvégiens."
Or Stavanger Aftenblad: "The most French, and one of the finest, things I've heard in a very, very long time".

And who are we meeting? JOLIE EVA VON SAVIGNY is the orchestra's maestra and a former cabaret singer, originally from an upper-class family in Berlin. It is said that she was a great role model for Marlene Dietrich, among others. DOMINIQUE DE BRAQUAVAL-EN-VALISE is a former circus performer and circus musician, who no one really knows who he is or where he comes from. LE COUTEAU never talks about his past. He only says that he's a true gypsy, mad and dangerous as can be, with heaps of unspeakable sins behind him, but the others suspect that there's a softer side to him, that he actually has a completely different life story that he won't admit to. He never laughs, rarely smiles. LE COUTEAU suspects that DOMINIQUE DE BRAQUAVAL-EN-VALISE is an internationally wanted Belgian, and that his pompous surname is pure fiction. DON JOHAN, the most Norwegian of Norwegians, used to have vague and unspoken connections to the infamous Norwegian sheep meat mafia in Western Norway. He ran a magnificent mountain farm in Voss, with visitors from all over the world, but when the French artist Margot de Nîmes performed at Stalheim Hotel in the autumn of 1913, his life changed forever. It was a coup de foudre for them both, love at first sight. THÉO comes from one of the most distinguished families in Paris, with ancestry dating back to the early French kings. But he hasn't had contact with a single one of his relatives for many years. Rumour has it that they gave him the double bass and a few precious heirlooms, only to send him packing the day he turned 16.
Eva Bjerga Haugen - vocals/keyboards

Dominique Brackeva - vocals/trombone

Johan Egdetveit - accordion

Andreas Barsnes Onarheim - guitar/vocals

Theodor Barsnes Onarheim - double bass
Fint Fransk Orkester are five Francophile jazz musicians who offer both music and stage shows, have become quite famous in their hometown of Stavanger for their energetic live performances and now play to sold-out houses throughout Western Norway. They have toured under the auspices of the West Norwegian Jazz Centre and Den Kulturelle Skolesekken, they have played at legendary chanson clubs in Paris, at a number of jazz clubs, venues and cultural centres in the west, south and east of Norway, and have two albums behind them, both to rave reviews.

L'Ambassadrice de France, the French ambassador to Norway, Mrs Florence Robine, is one of the orchestra's biggest fans, and has been present at all of their concerts in the capital.
You're welcome!