Sinfonia en Périgord
Festival Musiques Baroques en Liberté
Saison Les Grands Interprètes

You have been Director of Sinfonia en Périgord since 2001, ten years after it was founded by Michel Théodoridès. Have you forged your own path or have you emulated your father, a passionate music-lover?

I don't believe it is logical to sever ties: we must not confuse succeeding and seceding. For ten years now, Sinfonia en Périgord has been an adventure managed by my father and myself, with our common energy and passion for lively music. Clearly stated, as Director, I presently try to proceed with this essential job, with my personality and my sensibility. Discovering new forms of expression and creating musical, generational and cultural bridges that invigorate me; that is what I wish to offer through the Festival. Between the past and the future, I want to document this history by relying on what exists and by expanding repertoires, audiences and cultures. I want Sinfonia en Périgord to prove that classical music is not an elitist art, only for a few, but rather a high-quality art form available to the general public.

What led you to embark on this adventure?

My journey started first of all with a discovery, virtually a revelation at seven years old: with a deep emotional reaction I had while listening to classical music that played every Sunday in my father's office. I unknowingly evolved from a passive listener to an active music-lover. I couldn't live without the "great music", as many fearfully and respectfully described it. The piano, the lyrical singing of artists like José Van Dam, Jean Tubery, Michel Laplénie, Kenneth Weiss then today arranging concerts: all that helped me to become more mature and to adopt values and convictions that continually stayed with me during this adventure. I believe that an acculturated and "merchandized" world, in which only quantifiable things become our focus, is a dying world. Although promoting culture is not a profitable activity for the consumer society, it is an essential responsibility. Art is perhaps the only part of humanity that will outlast our society. Think of the Palaeolithic paintings illustrated in the Lascaux cave. I want to ensure that this culture, which hasn't yet yielded to the lure of modernity and its barbarisms, doesn't die before us. My cultural commitment is also political, because I believe that culture is by nature a political responsibility.

It's a risky adventure, which can lead anywhere. What motivates you to carry out your project?

It is the political responsibility that I mentioned before. I think that a society ceases to exist when it can no longer dream. Culture isn't only part of a leisure society. In my opinion, leisure is a product of sheer economics. A world in which man will serve a single individual or collective economy has no future. Culture, particularly the genre of classical music, raises another concern. Music, like other arts, is a mirror through which the world intimately creates and freely shares. It reflects the state of the world. It isn't necessary, yet it isn't pointless. Necessary and pointless. Well, I suggest that people come out, forget their hi-fi channel, television and computer that isolate them, and come be part of an intense experience through which they get to know themselves and others and feel invigorated.

What do you like most about this experience?

I take pleasure in knowing that this commitment is more powerful than an experience and is based on experimentation, meaning based on the attempt to repeat the improbable - evoking emotion. I don't take the stage like these artists and I enjoy seeing them perform before the audience everyday, producing a powerful, resonant sound. Music is a mystical product of their encounter with everything: performing musicians as well as the audience. Sometimes, this encounter takes place beyond the imaginable and the imaginary, creating a dream that takes each person away, far from the spatial and temporal boundaries of the concert.

Hector Berlioz wrote "Music seems to be the most demanding of the arts, the most difficult to develop." What do you think?

Developing music is like cultivating fertile soil. Patience and perseverance are needed. Sow, leave the harvest to germinate, reap and then begin again. The musician who never stops learning and doubting knows exactly what that means.

This seems to be the case in music: we develop a challenging, high-quality, and sometimes unrewarding art form, which the audience can still easily relate to, since there is no need to be greatly knowledgeable about music in order to be overwhelmed by emotion... refuting clichés that define it as an art reserved for the elite. Delve into its depths and explore what lies below the surface.

also said, "... art whose productions are most rarely presented in a manner that enables their real value to be appreciated, and their deepest sense and true nature to be discovered." Is this a reality today, particularly for baroque repertoire?

The intensity of baroque performances probably lies in the demystified approach of the artist. Is it necessary to unearth the deep meaning or the true nature of a work? To perform is to create. And what if the true, deep meaning of a work is merely a fluid image? To perform is to interpret a past work using a contemporary approach, meaning to let it emerge modern, new and reinvented. A work only comes alive when adapted. If I were to arrange an annual concert based on Bach's Goldberg Variations for instance, each performance would produce a new work. Its true merit is its profound meaning. Basically, it is all a matter of opinion which differs from person to person.

What therefore are the issues regarding music today?

I believe music, rather art in general, is linked to society. In evolving from a society of needs and wants to one of recreation, art and freedom of speech become secondary. Emphasis is no longer placed on dreaming, but adversely on owning and consuming. Personally, this tendency sows the seeds of barbarism. Music, like literature, is not supposed to provide instant pleasure. Music, like art, gives us the opportunity to change our focus, to take a step back and to slowly savour. Today that is forgotten. However, a society that no longer doubts is one that no longer dreams, imagines or searches. The state of our society is reflected by the role of art in the community, and its importance.

Does presenting baroque music relate to this desire to question ourselves about the world?

Baroque music is a rare gem that emerged at a time when the world was reinventing itself: the earth was no longer considered flat, the Americas were considered a paradise, the Renaissance period with Corpernicus and Galilee challenged the status quo, turning the world upside down, making it complex and enigmatic. Civilized society became chaotic because of these fundamental changes.

Even today, baroque music examines the world. Although the bass instrument still serves the same purpose, its ongoing shift between attraction and rejection compels us to question. It rejects certainty and forces us to reinvent. Today, I believe that the rediscovery of baroque music reflects the concerns of 20th and 21st century man. This musical movement is based on otherness, on the Other, be it a composer, performer or listener. The performer's function is shifted from providing pleasure and reflecting subservience in his works to a more powerful role that offers a lively musical dialogue. This creates a clash as there is a movement away from a heritage that transforms works to become lifeless and flexible and that only values the performer's language. Works no longer serve as a medium, but represent a changing reality, a perpetual movement that questions, restrains and at the same time liberates. It seems that the path followed in the past by Harnoncourt and today by artists like Jean-Christophe Frish, Christina Pluhar, Emmanuel Garrido, Jordi Savall and many others who dare to explore the unfamiliar, symbolizes a significant step. The approach of these artists, like Nicolas de Staël, Picasso, or Magritte, reaffirms the purpose of musical art in the world. Consider the work "Ceci n'est pas une pipe".

In the 19th and 20th centuries, science made us believe in the omnipotence of man. However art - and perhaps baroque music - uncovers man's frailties, contradictions and his doubts regarding the Other.

Today, our world has to reinvent itself: it is necessary to choose between creativity and the demands of the market.

The contemporary world is subjected to concepts called "isms"- rigid dogmas - of which the latest is "consumerism".

In baroque music, there is this ongoing revolt in its style and content, this rebelliousness that makes thought and man its core concern.

Classical music struggles to relinquish its reputation of being an elitist art and to attract a young audience. How do you respond when faced with such a crisis situation that impacts on this cultural tradition?

In France, historically classical music was ostracized punitively due to the Revolution, which considered it an art form too aristocratic to be popular.

The revolutionary bourgeoisie nevertheless made themselves comfortable in concert halls, and venues from which they had in fact excluded the working class. Presently in France, classical music is deemed costly, whereas a ticket for a Madonna concert is often a hundred times more expensive. Nevertheless who is surprised at the virtually insignificant role attributed to classical music by the general media, the Ministry of Education or even subsidized cultural establishments that often reserve the smallest section of their programme for classical music?

At Sinfonia en Périgord, we collaborate with music schools. We invite youths to explore the richness of music repertoire, meet the invited artists and converse with them. Furthermore, we do not financially discriminate among our audience members, and thanks to the support of our partners and patrons, we offer a modified and attractive pricing policy. Lastly, I have arranged the Festival programme in such a way so that the audience feels like every concert is an event that must be heard, seen and experienced. I do not undertake this project to win public admiration, but with the sole intention of featuring today's most outstanding artists in European baroque music.

Within four years, attendance at the Festival has doubled. Even though the opening of the chamber music season was predicted to be a flop, the event was in fact sold out.

In conclusion, judging from all evidence of attendance at auditoriums, I don't believe that there is a music crisis, be it a crisis that is purported to be a reality.

What do you think of the cultural policies implemented in départements today? How do you envision the future of music in France ?

I am quite optimistic about the départements. Actually, local communities are not yielding to the appeal of cultural marketing for the time being, particularly because of decentralization. Thus in France overall, there are more than one thousand, eight hundred classical music festivals. Unfortunately, most concerts take place during summer. Furthermore, outside of the metropolitan areas, classical music hardly features in programmes for regular cultural seasons.

What concerns me more is the government's stance and its general disinvestment in many cultural projects. We know there are budgetary increases, but financial assistance is reallocated to certain flagship institutions which are not representative of national diversity. These developments are worrying. That is the sign of a country that sacrifices its identity for profitability and opportunity. Today the future is being created and French vitality regarding classical music increasingly depends on community spirit. However key supporters are aging and without the endorsement of policies clearly aimed at preserving a vibrant and cohesive cultural identity, these supporters will pass away without successors. Passing on this duty is imperative.

How do you see your role as a messenger regarding this situation?

My role is minor, since it merely entails creating an open forum, where musicians present us with a journey, an enquiry and an encounter with the unknown. The realm of otherness, where the Other reigns.