The La Rochelle festival lifts the veil this Thursday on a very eclectic edition. Clara Luciani, IAM, Air and Ronisia will meet festival-goers from July 10 to 14.
The Francofolies de La Rochelle festival is keeping its focus on eclecticism for its 41st edition (July 10-14), with Clara Luciani, Véronique Sanson, Air and Ronisia on board, headliners announced on Thursday.
“We work by theme. We want each evening to have its color, its approach, complementary and coherent,” Pierre Pauly, programmer of this flagship musical event of the summer, explains to AFP.
No fewer than 45 first names were revealed by the organizers, proving, if necessary, the great diversity within the French-speaking world.
The festival will open with two regulars, Véronique Sanson and Jean-Louis Aubert, and will see a succession of beautiful female voices throughout this edition: Clara Luciani, Santa, Barbara Pravi, Hoshi and even the promising Solann.
An evening dedicated to rap
The crazy Philippe Katerine is invited for the evening of July 11, where the electro rock duo Air as well as Apashe with Brass Orchestra will also perform. “Apashe is a Belgian DJ living in Montreal, who offers hyper-quality electro with a brass section, or eight brass players on stage” for a “very scenographic” concert, draws Pierre Pauly.
Rap and its trends will have a dedicated evening, led by RnB singer Ronisia, the heavyweight of SDM streaming, alongside Oboy, Bekar and the Belgian Hamza. The Marseillais of IAM and the Palestinian rapper Saint Levant, who sings in French, English and Arabic, are scheduled for July 14.
Also on the bill: Kyo, Julien Doré, Ben Mazué, Styleto, but also Lamomali, the inexhaustible collective Malian adventure led by Matthieu Chedid. A metal evening and another, electro, around Cassius, are on track.
Actor Jean-Paul Rouve also sneaked into this program, with a show between literature and music.
Forty candles last year
On the organizational side, the festival does not escape the increasingly heavy economic constraints on these events. “We are impacted because we have an increase in production costs, security and a drop in financing, but we are lucky to still have this aura: the artists want to go through the Francos”, for their “prestigious side ” and their “capital sympathy”, observes their programmer.
To celebrate its 40th anniversary last year, the Francofolies offered Sting and Jean-Michel Jarre and were sold out, with 150,000 festival-goers.