Thanks, Ingmar Krause, for your description of Les Gets Festival in the
980721 Digest.

It is true there were so many people participating (more than 300, with
probably a hundred instruments in the streets, from the smallest to the
biggest ones), or attending (many thousands of visitors), that it was
impossible to speak to everybody, or to visit all the events.

The weather was absolutely wonderful in this winter and summer resort,
situated at about 3500 feet, with green mountainous slopes all around,
and the "Mont Blanc" (14.000 feet) visible 20 miles away from the top
of one of the lifts.

The theme of the festival was "Automatas" : several people were living
automatas, and an Italian, Massimo Monaco, built on purpose an incred-
ible 10-feet-high aluminium remote-controlled robot; from its belly
poured a book of music, and its chest opened to show the black and
white story of the terrible Frankenstein !

You may see it in a few days on Massimo Monaco Web site :

    http://www.musicameccanica.it/    and click on Spectacolo.

Another automaton, made by the famous French automata maker Cupillard,
showed in real size the 70-year-old leader of the brass band of the
station : during the opening and closing of the festival, both -- the
living man and the strikingly resembling automaton -- were playing the
trumpet side by side !

In the church, several concerts with the automatic 12 stops Residence
Aeolian organ, fully restored a few years ago, after it was saved from
being dropped in the Mediterranean Sea by morons.

On the streets, a lot of attractions: let us choose a very original one:
Richard Cole, the manager of the Londonian Brentford Piano Museum, made
demonstrations of the Theremin, with accompaniment of a portable organ,
or demonstrations of dancing with a dummy more real than a real person!

There would be a lot more to tell, about the museum (hundreds of
instruments, the largest one in France), the singing and dancing at the
end of the typically French Savoyard meals, and a wonderful Fireworks
on Saturday evening.

It seems everybody enjoyed the feast.

I have only one regret, not having been able to meet longer die Krause
Familie.

Best regards,

Philippe Rouille (Paris, France)
rouille@cnam.fr
http://www.cnam.fr/museum/musica_mecanica/