Paris-Manchester 1918
Conservatoires in time of war

RNCM / Paris Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra Concert

This concert took place as part of the Paris Manchester 1918 project, on 1 March 2018 in the Royal Northern College of Music Concert Hall; featuring the combined orchestral forces of the RNCM and Paris Conservatoire.

The programme included Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Elgar’s Variations on an original theme Op36 ‘Enigma’ and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique Op 14.

Paris Post-1918 (Ravel – Sonata for violin and cello)

Listening to Period Concert Halls – a musical and audiovisual experiment. Sonata for violin and cello by Maurice Ravel performed by Charlotte Juillard (violin) and Adrien Bellom (cello).

A film realised with the framework of pedagogical activities of the advanced sound production course at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris. Director: Bruno Mantovani. 

« Poilu » Soldiers’ concert on instruments of the trenches

Concert given on November 14, 2014, at the Cité de la musique (Paris) and on November 22 and 23, 2014 at the Hall de la Chanson.

Soap boxes or munitions cases used to build a cello, xylophones made of bottles, helmets transformed into mandolins, a gourd and sardine tin used to make a violin – these were among the instruments with which soldiers during the First World War often made music. Their songs were often cobbled together using their own words to familiar tunes. During the “Soldiers’ Concert on Instruments of “Misfortune,”” the songs are accompanied by an ensemble composed of students from the Paris Conservatoire performing on reconstructed instruments based on those so brilliantly imagined by the “Poilus,” the word used to designate French soldiers during WW I.