From August 5 to 14, the 2022 edition of the Lorient Interceltic Festival (FIL), will be that of the restart, after two years under the screed of the Covid. 80,000 paying spectators and 4,500 musicians, dancers, singers, artists from all over the world will be able to commune again around what brings them together: Celtic culture.
The musician and producer Jean-Philippe Mauras, appointed in June 2021 director of a festival he “knew very well”, after the fourteen-year term of his “friend” the Asturian Lisardo Lombardia“had a few ideas in mind to stir this “full and complete” first edition since 2019. “Two cross-cutting notions punctuate my programming: put inter-Celticism back everywhere to facilitate human and artistic encounters, and intergeneration, to make it a festival for everyone”he explained. To do this, two new rooms will be dedicated to current music, the route of the grand parade will be remodeled and new exhibition spaces will be installed.
Facilitate the meeting after the 2020 editions, canceled, and 2021, Franco-French under sanitary gauge, by inviting all “Celtic nations”: Ireland, Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, Asturias, Acadia, Galicia and Isle of Man all make the trip. Then the intergenerational, by creating a space of expression specific to emerging artists, “those who have digested the last 30 or 40 years of Celtic music and produced something very modern”. It will be Le Kleub, a room without seats dedicated to “very contemporary sounds”.
Among his guests, some of the latest “musical slaps” of the new boss: Elephant Sessions first, discovered on the FIL in 2017, Scottish “multi-awarded” to the indie rock sound inhabited by traditional instruments. Les Bretons de Fleuves also, piano and bass clarinet for an electro jazz trio that invites you to dance. And above all the Asturian detonator Rodrigo Cuevas, influences by the thousands and a voice of energizing clarity served by a half-queer, half-sorcerer character who captivates and transports as much as he intrigues, will be one of the banners of this fourth year of Asturias.
The management, who wanted to break with the spring announcement of the line-up deemed too late, began the formalizations in December. This precociousness is reflected in the programming: it hits hard from the first weekend with the headliners Murray Head, Saturday August 6 at 9:30 p.m., and Miossec, Sunday August 7 at 9:30 p.m., before the arrival of Gaëtan Roussel on August 10. These three will be welcomed on the stage dedicated to the big names and redesigned in the Amphi. On the menu, open air, increased proximity between the public and the artists as well as better acoustics.
The traditional big parade, locked up in the Moustoir stadium in 2021 for health reasons, will regain its freedom of wandering from the Cours de Chazelles on Sunday August 7.