Culture
Michel Brunner’s passion for giant trees
Swiss tree expert, Michel Brunner, is continuing his live shows about giant trees. He has been touring the German part of Switzerland since January with Vivamos, an organization promoting live shows about travels, nature, tours and photography. With great passion he talked for over two hours at the Zurich Volkshaus about his favourite subject, the trees of Europe. In 15 years, he must have spent over 2 years in his car and camping!
After a short introduction from the founder of Vivamos, Stefan Pfander, and a demonstration of the musical instrument the ahorn from www.fructus.ch, Brunner starts his informative live-show. He explains how he found the trees, mapped them, took pictures, made drawings and took numerous notes over the years. What interests him is the height, the size of the trunk, the history, the age and the curiosity of the trees among other things.
We see marvellous pictures of trees taken in various seasons, beautiful leaves, amazing branches, incredible trunks and various texture of bark. Relaxing music, sound of water and bird accompanies the show. From time to time it feels like being in the forest with him.
Oak Tree in Norway by Michel Brunner www.proarbore.com
Along the years Michel Brunner made an inventory of 4000 trees in Europe; a good 1000 come from Switzerland. In his live-show we travelled to France, Hungary, Sweden, Finnland, Norway, Scotland, Germany and of course to his home country, Switzerland.
He tells us about some tree records and where you can find the trees. For instance the birch with the biggest circumference is in Norway (5.50m) and the beech with the biggest circumference is in Germany at the Chiemsee (9.35m). He explains the connection between oak trees and druids, lime trees and love. He tells that poplars grow quickly and firs are often struck by lightning. A part of the show is spent talking about fruit trees like the cherry tree, the pear tree and the apple tree.
Michel Brunner has published many interesting books such as the 240 page book the Giant Trees/Baumriesen (Werd Verlag AG, Zürich, 2009).
If you are passionate about nature and trees, you may be interested in seeing one of his shows. The last opportunity will be on March 13th in Ennenda. You can also book using the web platform Olalei.
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Wonderful. I was born a Brunner , but in America they spell it Bruner, but I know my people were really Brunner or Von Brunner from Switzerland and I’ve traced them back to the 1400s. I wish I could find you on Face Book. Your work is wonderful. I know in Switzerland, Brunners were all great artists. I’ve been a professional artist my whole adult life. AND. How I love trees!! Good for you !