August 3rd, 2023French festivities fill Daylesford town hall

The Daylesford Town Hall was decorated in red, white and blue and alive with the festive music of France, and other parts of Europe too, for the annual Quatorze Juillet celebrations conducted by the Hepburn Shire U3A French Group and the Daylesford Community Brass Band.
Over 120 people braved the weather to celebrate the French National Day in style. There were prizes for French-themed dress and French-themed tables and almost everybody arrived in some form of French tribute costume.
This was the ninth annual French Night in Daylesford and all present enjoyed a happy evening of food and music and a little can-can in the grand finale.
This is the Daylesford Community Brass Band’s major fundraising event of the year and the band provided a number of rousing tunes from Bizet, Dvorak, Lecuona and even Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Christine Douglas sang Songs my mother taught me, by Dvorak and Millie Gouldthorpe sang La Mer. Euphonium soloists Chris Billings and Mark Lyall performed the duet from the Pearl Fishers by Georges Bizet, and Jenny Jordan led the band through the other numbers.
There were raffles and a silent auction to raise funds for the band and notable this year was the large number of Daylesford eateries who provided meal vouchers to be snapped up in the silent auction.