the choir of Notre-Dame de Paris is impatient to come back “home”

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“Come on kids, let’s hang on!” I know it's not easy to decipher at first. » Between two breaths, Émilie Fleury does not hesitate to cut the melodies to catch up with the students lost in their scores. The conductor of the Children's Choir and the Young Ensemble, of the Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris, prepares these children's and adolescent choirs to the reopening ceremony of the cathedral. Saturday December 7 and Sunday December 8, 2024, they will meet in the monument, in front of an audience of heads of state, artists, religious figures and a few million viewers, to make the soul of Our Lady resonate once again. Lady.

An “extremely” busy schedule

This Wednesday afternoon, two weeks before the ceremony, the thirty students seated opposite the choir director rehearse the musical program at crazy speed. “Tac, tac… That’s fine. That, too…” slips Émilie Fleury while scrolling through the white sheets crossed out with black lines. Because time is running out. “The schedule is extremely busy, we have a lot of scores to put together,” she summarizes. “We are still at the start of the year so for new and small ones, it requires a big investment. There are a lot of scores and music to assimilate very quickly. »

Henri Chalet, director and principal choirmaster of the Maîtrise Notre-Dame de Paris, also recognizes this: “It’s a great hurry but there is also a lot of pressure. » The students, whose ages range between 8 and 18, all attend school with flexible schedules in order to sing at least 12 hours per week. Enough to train hard before returning to the cathedral.

Some, too young, have never set foot inside. Others, however, wait impatiently returning “home”. “I arrived exactly the year it burned down, I was only able to enjoy it for one year. So I’m very happy to go back and sing there,” enthuses Nora, 16, under her bobbed hair.

Rediscover the place, the magic of the place, the spirituality of the place… Whether you are a believer or not, there is something extra that happens when you come to Notre-Dame. It's not a room like any other. There is an extra life, there is a soul. Mastery is part of this living soul: we are a living stone of the cathedral.

Many unforeseen events also add to the already heavy workload of choir directors and choristers. “We’ve been training since the start of the school year. There are a lot of songs that are still being added. For some, it’s less than ten minutes! » confides Émilie Fleury. Behind her glasses falling on her teenage nose, Bertille confirms: “We are used to making new programs but now, I don't know if we have ever had so many scores to work on at the same time […]. We spend our time deciphering so it's a bit hard. You have to hang on. »

“A living stone of the cathedral”

During the restoration and cleaning of the cathedral, affected in 2019 by a major fire, the voices of the Master were found “orphans”. Forced to sing “outside the walls”. “We had to reinvent ourselves for five years, while the work was finished. We are already lucky that it only lasts five years,” insists Henri Chalet. “The challenge for us was to maintain all the know-how, to be able to be ready when it reopens. »

To learn, you necessarily have to repeat, repeat, repeat. The most important songs, we will do them every day. Afterwards, there is a little personal work, it is also up to us to rework, listen again…

During the work, rehearsals always took place in the building of the boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris (5th), walled in with scaffolding and adjoining the Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet church. The concerts were held in buildings and rooms, each one more different than the last. “There, there will be the specificity of acoustics of Notre-Dame which we will have to re-appropriate and tame as quickly as possible,” warns the principal choir director.

Opening of the doors, awakening of the great organ, consecration of the new altar… The singers in blue dawns will multiply the performances throughout the events, services and performances of the 2024-2025 season. “There are going to be a lot of concerts, we have to prepare them well in advance because they are going to be big programs. We never had that,” notes Nora. “For newbies, it must be complicated to arrive in the year of reopening, it is a very important moment. They must be a little 'what's going on? ! Everything is coming together!'” quips the young girl.

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