An audience that has the least access to classical music surely deserves to hear its greatest performers. Les Concerts de poche, Les Concerts du mercredi and Les Enfants en scène foster this belief by taking classical music to areas where you would least expect to find it.
According to Gisèle Magnan, Director of Concerts de poche, “the audience in underprivileged neighbourhoods or isolated villages fully appreciate the emotion of the music being played to them”. This head-on encounter with music is often a precursor to awakening passions, as attested by the group of young people from the Melun suburbs who came to listen to Brigitte Engerer in Paris on their own accord, after listening to a piano recital that she had given in their neighbourhood.
In 2010, over 400 children from schools in the Yvelines will perform Dogora, a grandiose suite for symphony orchestra, children’s choir, mixed choir and soloists by Etienne Perruchon, under the direction of Pierre-Michel Durand. Hervé Farge, the president of APMSQ, the association for the promotion of music in and around Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, describes with emotion, “the unexpected amateurs, more accustomed to football stadiums than concert halls, who find Les Enfants en scène to be a genuine means of integration”.
He adds: “the role of an artistic sponsor is not only to help young international prodigies. It is also to renew the classical audience. MMSG does this, not just by providing funding, but by giving us institutional visibility.”
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