By Lilou Baker
Published on
Pop singer Laurent Voulzy’s 2022 “Churches and Cathedrals” tour will pass through La Réole (Gironde), on Thursday October 13, 2022 at 8 p.m. He will perform there in the Saint-Pierre church for the benefit of the association Safeguarding Notre-Dame-de-Lorette in Gironde.
He will be accompanied by a keyboardist and a harpist who will sing alongside Laurent Voulzy.
On this occasion, Republican South Gironde had the chance to chat with the artist about this tour.
News: How did the idea for this tour of churches and cathedrals come about?
Laurent Voulzy: I am passionate about history, music, France and England, the two countries in which I have lived and spirituality, I ask myself spiritual questions, like perhaps many people and I put this together in the album Lys and Love.
When it came out, I toured and gave three concerts in churches that made a big impression on me: the Church of Saint-Eustache, a church in England, near Westminster, and the Cathedral Basilica of Saint- Dennis.
And much later, after the album with Alain (Souchon), I was offered to tour churches and cathedrals. There, I said yes right away, because I wanted to repeat the experience.
During concerts, are there any differences between churches or cathedrals and more traditional performance halls?
LV: I find that in cathedrals and churches, there is something that touches me a lot. These are places that are already inhabited when you enter, there is something alive in them, which is not neutral at all. And so, you have to be in harmony with the place, that’s the difference.
These are busy places in which for centuries, lots of things have happened: people have come to cry, to seek hope, healing, to celebrate births, unions or even to celebrate love. So we have to find a repertoire that goes with the place.
People who come to see a concert in a church or a cathedral are more in a state of meditative listening, everyone vibrates at the same frequency at the same time, a kind of mass finally. The advantage of a church is that you are like in a spaceship, between earth and sky.
The concert in the church of La Réole has been added to your calendar. How was the idea organized?
LV: Bruno Girondès, the former CEO of my record company, whom I loved artistically, professionally, and friendly called me because he lives there, and he is part of the association Safeguarding Our -Dame-de-Lorette in Gironde. He asked me if as part of my tour that I do in churches and cathedrals, I wanted to come. And I said yes with pleasure, it corresponded to a schedule that was possible. It’s good to combine the useful and the pleasant for the preservation of heritage.
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