Vive l’amour…vive la FRANCE! with Maria Jette and Dan Chouinard

French Pop Songs from the ‘20s-‘60s

Francophiles Dan Chouinard and Maria Jette luxuriate in the delectable universe of French pop music, with songs and stories of Charles Trenet, Josephine Baker, Jacques Brel, Juliette Greco et al., from the breezy 1920s through WWII’s double-entendre patriotism…and a dose of the darker modernism of the ‘50s-early 60s. L’Amour: sweet, tart, bitter, comic.

Dan Chouinard: Piano, Accordion

Maria Jette: Vocals

For nearly four decades, DAN CHOUINARD has been pianist and accordionist of choice for a Who’s Who of performers in the Twin Cities area, including fellow Francophile Maria Jette. He’s also an enabler of community singalongs and a writer of hit shows for public radio, the concert hall, and the theater. A native of Minneapolis, Dan attended St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and taught French and Italian at the University of Minnesota for four years. Beginning in 1994, his radio series, The Singer’s Voice, was broadcast live from the Dakota Jazz Club weekly for six years. He was a regular guest on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion.

MARIA JETTE has performed with innumerable orchestras and chamber groups, in operas (portraying characters ranging from Handel’s Cleopatra and Mozart’s Fiordiligi through Britten’s Fido, the coloratura dog), and at music festivals throughout the country and abroad, as well as in her home base of Minneapolis-St. Paul (Minnesota Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Music Society of MN, Lyra Baroque, Ex Machina Baroque Opera, Vocalessence et al.). She was a regular guest on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion in its last 20+ years.