Discovering Alma Faverjon’s Project

Congratulations to Alma Faverjon, our student in the Professional Master in Cultural Project Management! She has just earned her degree with the congratulations of the Jury for her Real-Life Project “La Chine à portée de voix” (China Within Earshot), a series of concerts at the Musée Guimet. She is joining the patronage teams of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence as Major Donor Relations and International Development Officer.

Presentation of her “La Chine à portée de voix” (China Within Earshot):

  • The project, “La Chine à portée de Voix” (China Within Earshot), is an event weekend devoted to discovering Chinese culture. On Saturday, October 30 and Sunday, October 31, 2021, visitors to the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques Guimet were able to discover or rediscover the museum’s spaces to the sound of the vocal ensemble Les Métaboles and take part in vocal practice workshops led by a seasoned choir director and singer, Isabelle Briard.
  • The artistic program of this weekend has a twofold objective: to offer a fresh discovery of the MNAAG collections and to highlight the obvious links between French and Chinese folk songs.
  • Over these two days, the public was guided through the works by the vocal ensemble Les Métaboles, led by their conductor Léo Warynski. The musical moments were punctuated by discussions with the artists to show the public the links between the sung pieces and the museum’s works, as well as the affinities between French and Chinese music.
Student project: China within Voice's Reach
The La Chine à portée de Voix project

THE ENSEMBLE

Les Métaboles brings together young professional singers dedicated to the a cappella choral repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries.

DISTINCTION

In 2018, the ensemble Les Métaboles won the Liliane Bettencourt Prize for choral singing.

SUPPORTERS AND SPONSORS

The Métaboles are supported by Mécénat Musical Société Générale and the French Deposits and Consignments Fund.

Les Métaboles, "A Star of the First Importance"

  • Since the ensemble was founded in 2010, the artistic team has worked to create and distribute a cappella vocal music. For this, Les Métaboles can count on the support of many patrons such as the Fondation Bettencourt-Schueller, Société Générale and the Caisse des dépôts.
  • Les Métaboles now enjoy enough renown to be regarded by many top critics as the benchmark vocal ensemble. This is shown by the enthusiasm with which its last two albums were received, "Jardin féérique" (released in March 2020) and "The Angels" (released in March 2021). "Jardin féérique" contributes, according to Sophie Bourdais, music critic at Télérama, to making Les Métaboles "a star of the first importance."

ART DIRECTION

Since the end of the 20th century, Chinese choral music has grown significantly. This Chinese choral development is sometimes little known to Western musicians and audiences. Yet it opens up fascinating musical prospects.

Through this project, we wish to build a bridge between Chinese and French music around a program inspired by traditional folk music.

A large part of the Chinese and French choral repertoire draws its inspiration from the world of traditional folk songs. These two musical worlds, seemingly so different, actually have many points in common: pentatonic scales, lively rhythms, and lullabies are all shared ingredients.

Chen Yi, Chinese composer

Chen Yi, a composer straddling the West and Asia

The concert program highlights the work of an emblematic Chinese composer of the New Wave, Chen Yi. Since the beginning of her career (in the mid-1980s), Chen Yi has made a point of bringing Chinese and Western musical traditions into dialogue.

"A set of Chinese folksongs" perfectly illustrates this approach. The ten pieces that make up this set are arrangements of Chinese folk songs (from all corners of the country) to which Chen Yi applied composition techniques formalized in the West (such as "faux-bourdon", a harmonization technique typical of Renaissance contrapuntal writing).

“I think my music could become a bridge between people from different cultural traditions. I hope that it can be inspiring and helpful to improve the level of understanding between people from different parts of the world.”

"I think my music can become a bridge between people from different cultural traditions. I hope it can inspire and help improve understanding between people around the world."