The festival runs until October 9, only during the weekends. This year, more than 30 concerts are scheduled, the most popular of which are those taking place in the abbey, a place with perfect acoustics that can accommodate a thousand people. On September 17, there was a crowd to listen to (among other things) dtwo cantatas written by the young Handel during his stay in Italy, entrusted to the direction of René Jacobs at the head of Freiburger baroqueorchesterby Kateryna Kasper and Yannick Debus.
During this period, the whole city – which has more than 2,600 inhabitants – seems to vibrate to the sound of baroque music. In particular the former premises of the convent, where accommodation is offered to musicians, during the festival but also throughout the year for artistic residences. “There are 450 artists who rehearse, perform, leave but also stay much longer. It plays in the corridors, in the halls… There is movement, noise, music and it’s that’s awesome” emphasizes Pierre Bornachot, the artistic delegate of the festival.
In 2019, the year of its fortieth anniversary, more than 18,000 people came to attend the concerts in Ambronay, i.e. an occupancy rate of 94.10%. Enough to make many organizers of music festivals green with envy.
And yet, it all started from almost nothing, namely a group of music-loving volunteers. In 1980, they decided to organize a festival with three concerts, without focusing on baroque music. The brass quintet of trumpeter Guy Touvron, the Toulouse Chamber Orchestra and a voice and piano duo with baritone Udo Reinemann: this was the program for the first edition.
To host this festival, the organizers wanted to revive – with the help of the public authorities – a place that had fallen into disuse, a Benedictine abbey founded in the 11th century, a space of 7000 m² “divided, which was partly used as a shed for all kinds of old agricultural tools, used furniture and so on”told Alain Brunet, the creator of the festival in the newspaper La Croix in 2019. Today, the abbey has regained much of its beauty and above all, it lives and vibrates!
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The advantage of the abbey church is of course its unique, crystalline acoustics, which fully serve the music. The proof: some chefs design and compose works especially for this place. This is the case of the Argentinian Leonardo García Alarcón. On September 23, he will offer a world premiere The Passion of Gesuan extraordinary work for 6 soloists, 21 choristers and 25 instrumentalists.
Ambronay also became in 2003 a cultural meeting center, dedicated to artistic creation, mediation with the public, research and training of young talents. This is what allows this festival dedicated to early music to be part of the present, without being backward-looking, with an energy that has not waned over the years.