Festival Ravel
It will soon be five years ago, in December 2019, that Jean-François Heisser invited me to join him in the Festival Ravel adventure. The idea was to work together on a major new project bringing together the Academy and the Festival, and subsequently to entrust me with the helm after several seasons of joint programming. I immediately glimpsed the prospect of realising an old dream.
My passion for Maurice Ravel, just like my love for the Basque country, dates back to my childhood and is inseparable from it. As a young teenager, in 1996, I came to study with Jean-François at the Académie Ravel. Those successive summers in Saint-Jean-de-Luz were key moments in my development, intense moments of learning but also, and above all, of encounters.
I have often caught myself pondering what a great event might be like, one that would summon the spirits of all the musicians who, around Ravel, so enjoyed living or spending time in the Basque country: Stravinsky, Albéniz, Chaliapine, Debussy, Thibault, Prokofiev, Poulenc… A sort of grand Ravelian carnival with a rich, open and creative programme. Read more
Bertrand Chamayou
Chairman and Artistic director