Saturday, November 11 is Remembrance Day and this year, for longtime Canberra musician Christopher Latham it will prove especially memorable. On that day, the French Ambassador, Christophe Penot, is making him a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
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Latham, the first musical artist in residence at the Australian War Memorial, will join such honourees as George Clooney, Ron Radford, Robyn Archer and Kylie Minogue.
The honour, recognising significant achievement in the arts, literature or the propagation of these, was bestowed in recognition of Latham's project The Flowers of War.
"I'm incredibly grateful and deeply humbled," Latham said.
"I'm accepting it in my stepfather's name - he didn't get one."
Marc Honegger was a musicologist who wrote the standard French music dictionary and was also a big influence on his stepson.
"He steered me on the music in warfare path."
Honegger played the young Latham music of the World War One period including pieces by Alberic Magnard, "the Mahler of France, who was killed in the first few days of the First World War".
Over the four years marking the centenary of World War I (2014-18), supported by the Anzac Centenary Cultural Fund and the Mission Centenaire 1418 in a cultural exchange between Australia and France, Latham has been organising a series of concerts in the two counties. They featuring music by composers of the World War I era - some of them recently rediscovered such as the Australian Frederick Septimus Kelly, who was also an Olympic gold medal-winning rower - as well as newly commissioned music to commemorate the period.
In 2018 The Diggers' Requiem, a new work marking the Australian Imperial Force's Western Front battles, which includes some music by Kelly, will be performed in Australia - including Canberra - and in France. It wil be a companion piece to The Gallipoli Symphony which premiered in 2015.
Latham had the last of his 2017 concerts in the Flowers of War series on Wednesday night at the High Court of Australia. The Flowers of War logo - a red poppy, white daisy and blue cornflower - symbolises the bonds between Australia and France and the cultural losses sustained.
"It was one of the best concerts I've ever done, something quite meaningful," he said.
There will be other concerts next year and Latham said one of his ideas was to create a peaceful symbol between France, Germany and Australia.
"The enemies of 100 years ago are now the architects of peace."
