She sees herself as a translator. After a traditional schooling in Onet-le-Château – Narcisses school, Stade school, Quatre-Saisons college – then at the Monteil high school in Rodez where she obtained her baccalaureate B (economics) in 1999, Coralie Durand was 18 when she enrolled in an English university at Mirail (today Jean-Jaurès) in Toulouse.

She is preparing a Deug there that she will finally abandon. Two years not quite wasted since the student has refined her project – “It’s not always easy to choose the right course when you leave high school” – and leaves for Limoges to prepare a Deust Métier de la culture at the university of Sashes. “I had inquired at the CIO (information and orientation center, editor’s note) in Toulouse and I had seen that there was not a lot of training around culture at the time.” She graduated in 2003 after several stages, one of which brought her back, for two months to Rodez, to the independent music production label Dora Dorovitch, created in 2001 by Francis Estèves (alias Cisco) and Cédric Sauvestre.

But the time to enter the world of work has not yet come for the young Aveyronnaise.

Two great years in Arles

“I then decided to continue my studies because I did not yet feel ready to enter working life, she remembers. of Arles.”

A two-year training course in the administration of cultural institutions which offers courses in rights, accounting, management with presentations by film, music and visual arts professionals. Concretely, on leaving her master’s degree (equivalent to a Master 1), Coralie Durand, who specializes in music, knows how to set up and implement cultural projects. She also performs her first scene at the world music festival in Arles. “We manage the contracts between the artists and the festival, the ticketing… We really get into the organization, into the hard part of the subject”, she specifies.

“I really liked Arles, it’s a small ancient city very rich culturally. Over there, at the university, opposite the Espace Van Gogh, it was like a cocoon, she recalls. C It’s a city where I always return with pleasure. I kept a lot of contacts there.”

She returned to Limoges for her second internship as part of the Limousin Francophonie festival and returned to Toulouse in 2005 for her last internship with the production and tour organization company Klak’son.

NTM, Big Flo and Oli… A winning return to Toulouse

She also decided to settle in the Pink City, four years after having left it – and this time with two diplomas – to work, still in the musical field, at Bleu Citron productions, where she administers the tours of the artists. Fourteen years will pass, marked by the Suprême NTM tour from 2018 to 2020, for which she supervises a team of 50 people and manages the financial aspect, the concerts of Bigflo & Oli at the Zénith de Toulouse, at the Accor Arena in Paris. in 2018 and at the Toulouse Stadium… During this same period, she was also responsible for closing the budgets for nearly 400 shows a year. She drafts show contracts, commitments of artists and technicians, monitors cash flow, seeks funding and manages copyrights…

In parallel, during the years 2018 and 2019, after having obtained individual training leave at the authorized term, she obtained in 2015 a Master 2 Cultural Projects in the Public Space at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, she is in charge of production for the Compagnie de la Machine, whose gigantic hangar in the Montaudran district of Toulouse hosts spectacular creations. She thus coordinates the teams of the shows “Le Gardien du Temple” which attract 900,000 spectators in four days. “A great experience that changed me from the world of music,” she recalls.

Hired at Printemps de Bourges

In March 2020, the first confinement put culture on hold and Coralie Durand saw her activity stop dead.

Everything starts again very quickly then for the young Aveyronnaise who is called, in July 2020, by the departmental council of Haute-Garonne, to the direction of the living and visual arts where she had already spent from March to December 2017. She thus participates in the production of events such as “31 Notes d’été” or “Jazz sur son 31”, two events which attract more than 20,000 spectators.

A last mission which marks the end of the Toulouse adventure – more than 15 years – of the one who is now a recognized professional. She was indeed hired in September 2021 as production director – “a new challenge” – by the prestigious Printemps de Bourges, a historic event – ​​it was created in 1977 – which attracts more than 200,000 festival-goers each year. .

Coralie Durand is now based in Paris, in the 15th arrondissement, a few minutes by bike from her offices based in Boulogne. She is preparing the next edition of the festival there, which will take place from April 18 to 23, 2023.

From the capital, the Aveyronnaise, who remains very attached to her department of origin, always keeps in mind her love of the English language – she has made several stays in Great Britain where she took intensive courses in Bristol, and in Canada. “The England side always tickles me,” she said. Like a return to his youthful love…