While the gathering of more than 10 persons are always prohibited on the public domain concerts, and spontaneous are not allowed (only events that comply with the rules safety distances are), it’s a Celebration of the strange music that is about to celebrate France today. Created 38 years ago by Jack Lang, then Culture minister François Mitterrand and now president of the arab world Institute in Paris, the Fête de la musique encourages each year, according to the ministry of Culture, the organization throughout the country of more than 18,000 concerts by 5 million amateur musicians, before an audience of nearly 10 million viewers.
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In the small towns, non-tourist, the Holiday music is often the only cultural event of importance of the year and it is such a success over the last 38 years than 120 countries have created their own music Festival. How will host the edition 2020 ? The responses of Jack Lang.
The Point : When you have created the Fête de la musique, in 1982, to what misgivings have you faced ?
Jack Lang : Some have taken the idea with height, the newspapers spoke of a concert of pots and pans… It was the biggest fright of my life, I said to myself : but if people did not respond to our call ? In the end, the French took the game and are appropriate to the event, it is that which is extraordinary. He escaped me ! It is for this that he had so much success : it is a collective property. Like what you have to be stubborn ! The Feast of the music causes a state of grace. Respect is at the rendezvous. There has never been any violence, it is for this reason that I feel a great sorrow when I think of what happened a year ago in Nantes. This is the only time in 38 years that this festival has been bereaved. A young man, Steve Maia-located in Caniço, drowned while participating in an evening of techno in the Festival of Music. At 4 o’clock in the morning, the security forces have interrupted this celebration of summer and friendship with tear gas. This is pathetic. I’d like to dedicate this edition to Steve.
The music Festival is the antithesis of this covid-thing that prevents them from touching, getting closer !
After 13 hours, 21 June, a giant karaoke will take place on large picnic tables in the courtyard of the Institute of the arab world. This is your idea ?
We dug the head to find out how to physically gather music lovers, while respecting the health rules in the spirit of the meeting of the music Festival. We are lucky to have this great courtyard, so we created a karaoke of raï, rap, r & b, music, and songs of arab. And 17 hours, five hours of DJ sets and musical performances will take place on the roof, which will not be public, but broadcast live on Arte Concert and social networks, even if it would be better to have a dance floor to accompany this event ! People like the music Festival because it is an occasion for reunions, sharing, exchange, on the beaches, in the streets, everywhere, so it is the opposite of what covid-thing that prevents them from touching, getting closer ! It is the heart of the event, which is broken by this virus… But it is not necessary to be resigned. I am sure that people are going to find ideas. The Feast of music, it is overcoming obstacles, inventing new and unexpected situations on this plane, the spirit of the event remains.
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What have you been listening for the containment ?
a Lot of opera. The broadcasts of the Paris Opera and the Met were absolutely remarkable. I am a great lover of the opera and I love the real, the living, but I was impressed by the extraordinary quality of the recordings. You can see up close the faces and you can see how the performers of today are not only fabulous singers but the actors are incredible. At the same time, on the day when the opera house reopens, I will go with passion and enthusiasm, I do not dream absolutely not a virtualization of the world !
All of the sectors are gradually déconfinés, except the live music, festivals… would it not be better to trust to the organizers, rather than prohibit and risk of the parties, or raves, clandestine, without the means to ensure security measures ?
I don’t know, I’m not a doctor, but I believe that, unless there is a resurgence of the epidemic, things will loosen up.
This is the Berezina for artists
The concert organizers complained about the lack of visibility and clarity of the instructions to the Covid : mistakes have been made, according to you ?
I don’t want to turn me into a giver of lessons. This crisis was unexpected, violent, and brutal. But it is out of a situation is absolutely overwhelming in a few weeks. It is the Berezina for artists, art centres, thousands of festivals destroyed, these treasures of imagination and beauty… My dream is that everything will resume soon.
In 2020, the music industry will lose $ 4.5 billion on a 10 billion euros, which it would have had to generate. What to do to save the 257 000 jobs that make the music alive in France ? You mentioned a “new deal” for the culture…
there are two things : the emergency measures to support the cultural actors, the intermittents du spectacle, some are worthy of imagined for the thousands of invisible independent in France, we talk very little about visual artists for example… But you can’t say that nothing has been done : the minister of Culture has taken steps and proposed concrete solutions. Now, for the future, grasp by the hair of the situation as it is, which is serious, to develop an arts policy on the basis of the radically new. It assumes a background work, reflection. I suggested to send missives of the ministry of Culture everywhere in the country to establish an inventory of the situation, village by village and solicit the ideas of the creators, associations, movements for popular education to bring forth new projects and a new vision on arts policy. I have spoken of a “new deal” of culture in the thinking of Roosevelt, in 1929, has provided aid on a massive scale tens of thousands of artists and created what was to be the art nouveau american, Orson Welles, Jackson Pollock.
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for the past three years, the ministry of Culture has been gradually mistreated. Its appropriations are being eroded, particularly for the young creation. Several presidents have not contributed to the culture and momentum that it needs.
The experience of adversity is also the birth of beautiful works… to Each his own experience, some artists also create a frenzy, but it’s not going to do the apology of suffering.
actors of the music sector have recently proposed, among other things, to focus even more French productions on the radio… In times of crisis, are we seeing not a decline in cultural self-esteem ?
The radio and television must promote original creation and the new talents, but I am hostile to chauvinism. France should be open to universality and encourage the young talents of the country, this is not contradictory. The line border is not between nations : it is between the original creation (which can be multi-coloured and multi-national) and the flooding of the radios and festivals by the big machines international.
What has been your most memorable music Festival ?
The first. Some artists have given from the outset an impetus to the event, such as Jacques Higelin, who organized a kind of stroll through Paris taking with him the bands fans… It was overwhelming.
writing will advise you
Nightclub and déconfinement : Ubu, king of the night
