Issue #16 - February 2026

Benoit's World News

Hello folks

I have almost managed to send my newsletter within one month of the previous one. A miracle! Would you believe it? I've tried to keep it short, if you want to get more in depth stories you'll have to come to the concerts, where I will talk a lot about all dramatic aspects of life. All I have to say for now is that i have a new album.

Horoscope

We are leaving the year of the wood snake (supposedly focused on transformation, wisdom, and responsible decision-making) for the Fire Horse (characterised by powerful energy encouraging action, but also advising mindfulness to avoid chaos and challenges). That does not sound very encouraging because If you thought 2025 was crazy bad, you can already see what happened in the world in January 2026. Just wait for the year of the fire horse to start on 17th February 2026. All bets are off... but or now just like like Ulysses; I'll tie myself up to the mast and try to keep on playing music despite the doom and gloom of the news cycle mermaids.

Live at the Royal Albert Hall

I am planing to release a new CD. I know it's stupid, that I will most probably waste a lot of time, and money, and that my humble expectations of getting noticed by the music industry will be shattered once again; but as a passionate French man I can't help it.

Basically this is the plan:

I have two fantastic recordings of my Orchestra performing live that I have never released. I hope to get them out to raise some money so I can book a studio, pay the musicians and production costs to record all the music I have been doing the last five years with my Hot Club.

The first of those recordings is of my Orchestra "live at the Royal Albert Hall" in their "Elgar Room" in 2016 in the heydays of the band. For the curious, the Albert Hall is for hire only, and I remember correctly if you can pay a deposit of about £50,000 so you can perform there, and then you have to fill it selling your tickets yourself. But the hall also has a lesser known 300 capacity concert hall on the first floor where they book acts they find culturally interesting. I have been blessed to be programmed there three times, so I can say that I've been booked repeatedly by the Royal Albert Hall, Ah!

You can go to listen or PRE-ORDER on Bandcamp, it is only a rough mix at the moment, and I need to find money to pay for the mastering. I will select 14 songs to fit the 74mn CD format. There is 90mn of music, but I did not want to do a double album. The minimum run for a quality factory production is 300 copies, so if I do all the artwork myself I will need to raise about £1500 to finance the factory pressing and £500 for mastering.

​Please help me to release this if you like this music and want to keep it alive. There are not enough live gigs at the moment to support such projects, let alone making a decent living. If you were to order a CD I would be forever grateful. and if you don't have CD player anymore, I'm sure you could always get a WISE.COM card for your holidays abroad instead (Just suggesting a brilliant idea that will save you millions).
​

Money, money, money, abroad.

Basically I have hardly ever made any, so my profession is described as "being a creative", which means that I have to create things, make things happen out of nothing, all day, every day for very little in return. One of the challenge of being a musician apart from spending thousands on equipment, recordings, cars, prison bailouts, releasing CDs and videos that go largely unnoticed, is to finance performances abroad and far away.

It's really not fun in Post-Brexit Britain to go to perform in Europe or Asia with 5 to 8 people, pay for everything in funny currencies for the whole team without being totally hammered by conversion rates, bank charges and other hidden torments. Just Imagine that you have to book a hotel room for each member of the group everywhere you stay, individual transport fares, food, visas, in an undecipherable language with added Brexit induced bureaucracy. The price to pay is always over the daily maximum you can withdraw on your card, so you have to call your bank manager from India, or Eastern Europe despite time differences while being in a hurry to get to your bus / train / plane to the next gig... on time. You can feel my pain, stress, and frustration.

But eventually, I have stumbled across the perfect solution, and I'd like to recommend it to you to beat stress, banks and bureaucracy all at once! You might not be touring with a band but you may have a very large family to take abroad. That solution is ​WISE.COM​​

Basically It's a British headquartered company that saves you all the bank transfer hidden charges and currency conversion rate for payments in 160+ countries and 40+ currencies. It is the cheapest by far for international transfers. You register and open an account online in 5mn, and once abroad you can transfer money when you want from your current account to your card via a mobile app and convert it in the currency of your choice. It works almost all over the world and the whole process takes about 30 seconds from start to finish. That will save you hundreds on each trip. You can now see how that totally changed my life for the better...

To open an account please go to: ​https://wise.com/invite/dic/benoitv​​

By using that link to register you will get some special perks: a free card or zero fees on a transfer up to £500.

To be honest with you, If a few of you join and use their cards abroad, I could receive a little something from Wise, but that money, if I ever get any, will go towards the production on my new CD. People don't seem to want to buy physical releases anymore you see, but they keep offering me cocktails when I perform, knowing full well I can't have them because I have to drive home... So joining Wise.com will be a nice way for you kill two birds with one stone: You'll be glad to beat the banks, and feel great supporting the production and release of my new album.

February 6th: Bandcamp Friday!

That is today! Bandcamp Fridays began in March of 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic when the shuttering of venues led to a loss of vital tour revenue for artists. Since then, Bandcamp Fridays—on which Bandcamp waive their revenue share and pass 100% of the funds directly to artists & labels—has resulted in millions of fans paying over $120 million directly to labels and musicians they love. In addition to helping artists pay the rent, or fund album recordings and tours, Bandcamp Fridays have also become a beacon for artists and record labels looking to raise awareness for causes or raise money for charities.

You can help me financing my new album by purchasing some downloads and CDs on "Bandcamp Friday" on the 6th of February. that would make a real difference and make me so happy! Some of my CDs are running very low on stock, so get them while you can as I will not reprint.

Upcoming concerts:

There is not much going on at the moment so I spend most of January doing accounting like everybody else. But I would like to invite you to a concert I am promoting and give you £5.00 off as a little Xmas present:

21st March - Live at St Mildred Church (tenterden Kent)​
I play that church once a year and I love it as the acoustics are remarkable and with 250 seats I can bring the full band. ​​
​St Mildred Tickets​ - Use the code "WORLDNEWS16" during checkout to get £5.00 0ff.

From the author

That’s it folks, It's was a bit long but I hope it was good, or at least "somewhat good". For complaints and accolades please email me, I will respond.

A bientot. (French: meaning "See you soon")

Benoit Viellefon

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Benoit Viellefon - St Matthews Gardens, St Leonards-on-sea, East Sussex, United Kingdom
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​