The 73rd “limited edition” of the Festival ended Sunday, September 20, with Orquesta Silbando’s tango notes at the Grand Kursaal, a concert broadcast on a giant screen in Place Granvelle and live on the Internet.
The positioning of the Festival at the end of the summer allowed us to set up an edition adapted to the health context (suppression of the big symphonic formations, changes of places, schedules, retransmissions on giant screen and on the web…), and to offer you, after several months of silence, an edition which remained rich and varied.
First figures
Nearly 10,000 of you attended one of this year’s thirty concerts, including 7,000 at the free events: the opening concerts with Roda do Cavaco and then the Orchestre Victor Hugo Franche-Comté , the eight concerts of the Boucle musicale, the Youth Orchestra, the six aperitif-jazz on the Place Granvelle and the closing concert.
As expected, ticket sales are down sharply (-75%), and if the cancellation of seven major concerts and the reduction of gauges partly explain these figures, it seems that a part of our audience has not yet fully regained their way to the concert halls…
Artistic review and highlights
Highlights include the Orchestre de chambre de Lausanne with soloist Alisa Weilerstein on cello in Shostakovich’s Concerto, under the baton of Joshua Weilerstein, the only “big band” of this edition with the Orchestre Victor Hugo Franche-Comté.
Two very beautiful moments also at the Grand Kursaal: Hervé Niquet and the Concert Spirituel offered a Handel evening of the highest level, while Quintet Bumbac took the audience on a journey with its melodies from the Balkans and the Middle East.
The young audience concert “Mozart illustré”, premiered at the Festival, with the Winds Arts Orchestra conducted by Julien Bénéteau, and live illustrations by Grégoire Pont, was also a great success, both with school children and the general public.
Finally, the aperitif-jazz concerts, Place Granvelle, replacing after-jazz, found its audience from the very first evening, with attendance tripled compared to the old formula.
Camille Pépin seduced
The residence of composer Camille Pépin had to be reduced, with the cancellation of part of the meetings planned for the spring with the conservatories, as well as two concerts where symphonic pieces should have been played in September.
But festival-goers were still able to hear the music of our young composer thanks to the Trio Metral and then Célia Oneto Bensaid who performed two pieces magnificently in a Ravel-Glass-Pépin recital.
