Location: France

The July session is back to Aix-en-Provence. As always, the session gathers young improvisers led by Fabrizio Cassol in the composition process and coached by Christiane Louis in their career development.

Thanks to video applications, and despite the numerous travel restrictions, ten artists were selected to participate in this session produced by the Orchestre des Jeunes de la Méditerranée. They rehearsed at the Cube, a cultural space in the heart of the Aix-Marseille university campus for two weeks.
Mentored by the composer and saxophonist Fabrizio Cassol and the drummer and composer Stephane Galland, the musicians composed together and learn how to create in an intercultural context. They also benefited from the coaching of Christiane Louis, in charge of the career development department at the Philharmonie de Paris, who gave a workshop on career development, this time focusing on the use of social networks in the promotion of artists.
Taking place in the frame of the Medinea  Erasmus + programme, the session hosted the filming of two modules of the Medinea Series, as well as a meeting of the programme’s partners and co-producers. The organisation of these meetings in Aix-en-Provence on 19 and 20 July allowed the representatives of the Erasmus+ partner organisations, not only to attend the end-of-session Medinea concert but also to use their expertise to advise the artists of the session in their respective professional projects during a project pitching exercise.

The participating artists performed their compositions in a concert on 20 July 2021 at 9:30 pm at the Hôtel Maynier d’Oppède and then had the chance to organise an outreach action with students from L’Ecole de la Deuxième Chance, an audience of school drop-outs linked to the emerging artists by the Passerelles* service to perform in small groups, named “constellations” by Fabrizio Cassol, at one of the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra’s key partners in the region, the Camargo Foundation.

The final concert was broadcasted live on Facebook, Instagram, our YouTube channel, and on The Digital Stage website, the festival d’Aix’s broadcast platform.

Find below the press review of the session:

Photo credit :  Vincent Beaume
* Passerelles leads awareness-raising events, as well as projects with nearly 5,000 participants, thanks to relationships forged with over two hundred schools, universities, associations and social institutions.