While the Croisette is living its last festival hours, a “New Wave” is about to break out on the other side of Cap Bénat. This evening, the municipality of Six-Fours-les-Plages will welcome star violinist Renaud Capuçon and several of the young talents he produces through his company Beau Soir (violist Paul Zientara, violinist Stéphanie Huang and pianist Guillaume Bellom), for the launch of Swan Nights. “More than three weeks of chamber music concerts, where the biggest names on the French scene can rub shoulders with emerging talents”, rejoices the programmer Gerald Lerda.
For three years, it is he who orchestrates, at the request of the mayor Jean-Sébastien Vialatte, the Classic wave. Much more than a simple festival, the prefiguration of a full-fledged classical music season, which takes place every year in three stages. “A first meeting around chamber music, in the setting of the main courtyard of the Maison du Cygne, lulled by the song of the cicadas, between May and June, he explains. The La Collégiale festival, centered on the Baroque, and which will be celebrated this year, in July, the tenth anniversary. And finally the Concerts de la Lagune: three free concerts, offered to the Six-fournais, and which will take place this year at the Maison du Patrimoine, on the Corniche des Îles, facing the sea.
A long-time dream for Jean-Sébastien Vialatte, mayor of Six-Fours for almost three decades, and who ultimately wishes to offer his town a real “musical center”, with the creation of a 400-seat auditorium and a relocated site of the conservatory of the metropolis of Toulon Provence Méditerranée. “After the restoration of the Collégiale in 2013, the City launched the La Collégiale festival, which enabled it to forge extremely strong and privileged relationships with certain classical artists. In particular Jean-Christophe Spinosi, whose radiant and overflowing personality has this unique ability to awaken the scenes,” continues Gerald Lerda.
But it is in 2020 that a second decisive meeting takes place. That of cellist Gautier Capuçon. “Coming out of confinement, the mayor wanted to offer the Six-Fournais several completely free concerts. That’s how Gautier Capuçon found himself coming to play at Six-Fours. Love at first sight was immediate. So much so that he now spends part of his vacation there. And that last year he even organized the closing concert of his Summer in France tour. A particularly moving moment, which saw him perform on July 24 in the magical enclosure of the Mediterranean Park, surrounded by eleven young instrumentalists and dancers, and even his daughter Fée, for a duet between dance and cello which was a moment of suspended grace.
The musician will close this year the Nuits du Cygne, with a recital in the company of his faithful friend and pianist Jérôme Ducros (June 17), then three young talents from his foundation: Anastasia Rizikov, Sarah Jégou and Lisa Strauss (June 18). The first laureate of the said foundation, Kim Bernard, will also perform at the lagoon concerts in September, for a piano recital. In the meantime, the electric Spinosi will also have brought a breath of fresh air to the tenth anniversary of the La Collégiale festival, with exceptional guests (Rolando Villazon, who will take over Monteverdi’s Le Combat de Tancrède), and great voices in the making, at the like the contralto Maria Sala, grand prize of the Cesti competition in Innsbruck in 2020.