FESTIVAL RADIO FRANCE MONTPELLIER

Do you love 360° music anddance?W elc ome to Montpellier (a truly beautiful city,by the way), where for a fortnight we were able to attend 90 events (including 8 symphony concerts) in 40 different venues.

For its 38th edition, the festival has refreshed its organising team, headed by a new director, Michel Orier, who is also Director of Music at Radio France.

It's impossible to mention all the concerts, but the quality and diversity ar e remarkable. The pr ogramme featured young performers such as theorboist Gabriel Rignol, conductor Chloé Dufresne, trumpeter Raphaël Horrach, and the Mona string quartet, to name but a few.The festival has also been able to count on some of today's gr eat performers: Fazil Say, Isabelle Faust, Karine Deshayes, Michel Portal... Jazz, electro and non-European music have also been given pride of place, with kora player Ballaké Sissoko, singer Samara Joy and DJ Avalon Emerson.

The last two days saw performances by two local artists. First up was Laurent Coulondre, a pianist from Nîmes, who presented his new pr oject 'Meva Festa' at the Domaine d'O Amphitheatre: a lively Latin jazz with an incr edible succession of Cuban and Brazilian rhythms.

He was accompanied by some excellent musicians:

Alexis Bourguignon (trumpet), Cyril Galamini (trombone), Lucas Saint-Cricq (saxophone and flute), Christelle Raquillet (vocals, percussion and flute) and Léo Chazallet (bass and double bass).

The grand finale was a concert by the Orchestre National de Montpellier, conducted by the young Montpellier-born Chloé Dufresne, in the Parc de l'Europe, with free access. The audience turned out in masses. Even those less fond of the symphonic repertoire were thrilled by the brilliant and festive programme on the theme of dance: fr om excerpts from The Nutcracker by Pyotr Ilyich T chaikovsky to the Hungarian Dances by Johannes Brahms, not for getting a few opuses by Johann Strauss: a genuine triumph!