Aged 7 to 12, they are among the new students of Démos, this device that allows you to learn music for free by playing in an orchestra, and which celebrated its tenth anniversary this year, in the midst of a pandemic.
Starting from cities and disadvantaged districts of Paris, the project has spread to the four corners of France: 4,500 young people currently in training through 45 orchestras (60 are planned for 2022), from Saint-Quentin Gauchy in the Aisne to the district from Malpassé to Marseille, via Seine-Saint-Denis.
A “success story” which means that on average 50% of Demos students continue to practice music after a three-year cycle, according to the Cité de la Musique-Philharmonie de Paris, which manages the device.
Primary mission: to break down the socio-cultural barriers that surround the practice of classical music. His godfather, Lilian Thuram, had confided in interviews that he was ashamed to say that he liked to listen to Mozart when he was a child.
“The advantage of Démos is to (bring) music to families who would never have crossed this door on their own”, explains to AFP Anne Larue, viola teacher.
It’s about “To erase the old ghosts of the impossibility of access to music”, adds her colleague Olivia Steindler, violin referent.
With masked children and in groups at a distance, they begin warm-up exercises for the vocal cords and breathing. Here, neither music theory nor individual work, it is the collective that takes precedence.
Ms. Steindler tuned the children’s violins – made available to them free of charge – before starting a rehearsal of a snippet of Mussorgsky’s “The Great Gate of Kiev” but also of “Vive le vent”.
Fataine, 11, remembers her first violin lesson in September 2019. “I was amazed (…) I would so much like to go to a concert hall… it’s a dream country”. She regrets the time lost during confinement, where videoconferencing courses have been set up. “I hope they will give another year!”.
Four hours of workshops per week, an orchestral rehearsal every six weeks, a public concert at the end of the year and, at the end of the three years, a concert at the Philharmonie, a source of pride for parents.
Rival of conservatories, Demos? “If at the start, things were seen rather in opposition, the Demos teams understood that the central role of the conservatory should not be called into question and that it was necessary on the contrary to seek to approach it”, assures Laurent Bayle, president of the Philharmonie.
Bridges have thus been created and students who so wish are guided to conservatories, still perceived as strongholds despite their efforts to democratize and where diversity is less visible than at Démos.
Judged initially as “Classical music at a discount”, the project silenced critics with its success. “It is by no means a question of teaching at two levels”, according to Steindler.
The project, which is also sponsored by the very popular pianist Khatia Buniatishvili, has matured so well that 2020 saw the birth of a new formation, “Orchester Démos – Orchester de Paris”, where children at the advanced level play alongside young people from conservatories. .
Following in the wake of models like the famous Venezuelan El Sistema, Démos is not the only initiative of this nature in France (Ten mois d’Ecole et d’Opéra, L’Orchestre à l’école, L’Académie musical Philippe Jaroussky), but it has won over patrons, regional authorities and the State (a single orchestra costs 265,000 euros per year).
The biggest difficulty? Keep children over three years old and instill discipline. “Some are super motivated, others want to play football”, laughs Madame Larue.
by Rana MOUSSAOUI
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