Due to the Covid-19 epidemic, this annual meeting initiated by the Lille National Orchestra in 1995 has not been able to take place since 2019.
The opening of the Magic flute by Mozart, Symphony No. 8 by Dvorak: around fifty inmates from the Sequedin remand center (North) escaped, for an hour, from prison life on Wednesday, thanks to a concert given by the National Orchestra of Lille (ONL).
These 54 prisoners, men and women, some already sentenced, others in pre-trial detention, benefited from a partnership between the ONL and the prison administration, initiated in 1986 under the aegis of conductor Jean-Claude Casadesus .
“Our way of escaping”
Becoming an annual event in 1995, this prison concert has not been able to take place since 2019 due to the Covid-19 epidemic. In street clothes, the 70 ONL musicians played in a gymnasium of this remand center.
Educator, conductor Victor Jacob, 32 years old, revelation (tied) at the Victoires de la Musique Classique 2023, presented the two works to the prisoners, defining in a few words a symphony or a chord and humming to make the difference understood between minor and major modes.
“Music is our way of escaping, of expressing ourselves. The idea, this morning, was really to bring our little artistic side, of escape, new colors, new atmospheres, to those who see the same walls very often”he explained to AFP, after being warmly applauded by some detainees, more timidly by others.
“I was far away in my thoughts”
“I thought I wasn’t going to like it but I like it”confided Salim (the first names of the detainees have been changed) at the end of the concert. “It’s something new, I’ve never heard an orchestra and all this time I thought I really wasn’t in detention, I was far away in thought.”
“When we leave our cell and the corridor where we live, we feel a little free”summarized Laetitia, mother of boys in their twenties with whom she mostly listens to rap. “We tell ourselves that outside, there is something alive and waiting for us.”
As an extension of this concert, three educational workshops must be offered to around ten prisoners by the end of 2023, a new system in Sequedin.
These detainees, already enrolled in a school course in detention, will benefit from an introduction to the orchestra then, in the presence of a music therapist, will be able to try out musical practice themselves, before meeting musicians from the ONL.