Toulouse. Fanfare debut for the popular orchestra of the Pradettes district
The Orchester populaire des Pradettes has just started. Supported by the association Les Belles Fanes, this new ensemble rehearsed for the first time on Saturday January 21 at the Center d’animation de Bordeblanche. It brings together about fifteen people from the neighborhood, from Portugal, Tunisia, Syria, Georgia, Burkina Faso but also from Madagascar and Ireland, places sharing their musical culture of oral tradition. These inhabitants brought with them their voice for the singers, and for the instrumentalists, their percussion, bagpipes, ukulele or even harmonica and transverse flute.
The creation of this orchestra is one of the many actions deployed as part of a two-year regional residency by Mathilde Lalle and the violinist Camille Sabathier. Their objective: to make the inhabitants of Les Pradettes actors in the long term of a cultural project centered on traditional music. It was also from them that the two founders of Les Belles Fanes went to collect songs and instrumental pieces. This unique musical background has been deposited at the neighborhood media library and at the Occitan Center for Traditional Music and Dance. It will also be able to supply the repertoire of the Orchester populaire des Pradettes.
“Music helps to build community and at the moment, it meets a real need. Making music together, meeting others in their own way allows us to create moments that do good for diversity, both for the people who practice and for the public who receives”, explains Mathilde Lalle, specialist in Occitan singing who has been leading since 2020 a polyphonic singing workshop from the Pyrenees and elsewhere in Les Pradettes. Les Belles Fanes have also been organizing since October 2021 with the cultural café Folles Saisons, the Candades, evenings dedicated to spontaneous singing open to all languages, “between beef and the open stage”.
Concerts in April
For the new orchestra, the first concerts will take place on April 8, during the Pradettes market, and in June, during the next edition of the Fête de la Musique. Until then, rehearsals are performed every first and third Saturday of the month at the CADB, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.