Kira and Her Adventurer IId Travel Violin Save the Day at the Abbey in Conques

Before Our Story, A Little Bit About the 1,000 Year-Old Sainte-Foy Abbey Church

The Sainte-Foy Abbey (of the Benedictine Order) Church in Conques, France (the Southern part of France) was a popular stop for pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela, in what is now Spain. Its construction began sometime in the 1020s and was completed almost a hundred years later in 1120. The original dome later collapsed and was replaced in the 15th century.

The main draw for medieval pilgrims at Conques were the remains of Saint Foy, a martyred young woman from the 4th Century. In the late 9th Century, a monk from Conques allegedly stole these relics of Saint Foy from a nearby monastery in order to draw travellers (and…um…wealth) to Conques. You never know what to expect from those Benedictine "wild men" when they cut loose… 🙂 Note to monastic history novices: the mental image of a Benedictine Monk stealing a corpse is so out of character with the ultra-strict Benedictine stereotype as to be almost humourous. The Benedictines make the Franciscan's look like playboys by comparison.

The Abbey Church that was eventually built served a dual purpose: to accommodate the steady traffic of pilgrims, while at the same time serving as place for the community of Benedictine Monks to gather for devotional obligations seven times a day. Owing to its twofold purpose, Sainte-Foy's layout is a hybrid of a prilgrim shrine and an Abbey Church. For the non-monastic town residents, a smaller parish church, dedicated to Saint Thomas of Canterbury, was built. The smaller church is long gone.

Since the at least the 19th Century, The Sainte Foy Abbey Church has been officially considered by the government of France to be an important historic site. In 1998, The Sainte-Foy Abbey Church was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Live musical performances are one of the special nightly events at the Abbey Church. The Church's old pipe organ plays a MAJOR role in these musical performances. The organ being out of service would be a seriously big deal. This is where our story begins.

Kira Zielinski's Incredible Story

Kira started as a customer of Don Rickert Lutherie and its online store, the Adventurous Muse Store. She has since become a close Friend. Kira is a true adventurer. This angelic wisp of a woman flies helicopters for a living…need I say more.

She is also a serious violinist and fiddler who takes her Adventurer IId Travel Violin

  on her travels, leaving her way-cool carbon fiber Luis & Clark violin at home.

Her current expedition to Europe included a tour of off-the-beaten track and just plain obscure (for average tourists anyway) locations in France. One of her destinations was, you may have guessed, the Sainte Foy Abbey Church in Conques. She really wanted to hear the nightly concert of medieval music at the Abbey Church. Little did she know that she would end up being the main attraction!

In her inquiries about the evening's concert, Kira learned that the Abbey Church's massive pipe organ  was out of order and was shut-down for maintenance. No concert without the organ. Here is the incredible part. Somehow (the details are currently sketchy), Kira was asked to fill in for the non-functioning organ, playing her Adventurer IId Travel Violin by Don Rickert Lutherie. Did I mention that Kira has knows a respectable reperatoire of 11th and 12th Century music? So, in the able hands of Kira Zielinski, our Adventurer IId actually substituted for a pipe organ. The small travel violin, played acoustically (no amplication of any kind), resonated beautifully in the massive space!

The fiddle and Kira's playing sounded so good that she was asked to perform again a second night…Now that is the kind of customer feedback we love to hear.

We have some photos of the Sainte Foy Abbey Church, several of Kira's Adventurer IId overlooking the town of Conques and some more of Kira warming up for her performance in the Abbey Church. See Kira Z Playing Rickert Adventurer Travel Violin May 7, 2011.