For a year, cellist Estelle Revaz has been in politics in Bern under the Federal Dome. The national advisor (PS/GE), who is releasing her sixth album, returns to two issues for which she mobilized.
Like every morning during the Parliament session, Estelle Revaz got up around 4:00 a.m. to come play her instrument in an empty room of the Federal Palace. “I lead a double life: that of parliamentarian and cellist, international concert performer,” she explained to Keystone-ATS in the Salle des Pas Perdus of the Federal Palace in Berne one day before the end of the winter session .
Among the political projects on which she has worked, she highlights the national strategy to combat poverty, the first motion that she managed to pass before the two Federal Chambers.
“The heart of my commitment”
The 35-year-old professional musician also succeeded in integrating into the legislative program the adaptation of social insurance schemes to the professional realities of actresses and cultural actors: “It is still the heart of my commitment.”
The Federal Council has the mandate to propose a text. A situation update is planned at the start of the year, but “the fight will be long-term”.
Gender equality, including the salary issue, Bilateral III with the European Union and artificial intelligence also occupy the young woman. For example, she tabled a parliamentary initiative during this session, defending continuing training, to allow employed people, potentially impacted by the arrival of AI, to be able to either train or retrain.
The shock of Covid-19
Although Estelle Revaz has been working on her instrument since the age of six, her involvement in politics is very recent. His realization came suddenly during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“From one day to the next, everything collapsed.” International tours stopped and artists were not entitled to compensation. “Considered as non-essential, invisible, we were excluded from the first version of the Covid law.”
It was really “something brutal”, according to the musician. “To survive in terms of identity, I needed to lead this political fight. This Covid law had to be changed, so that all actresses and cultural actors, regardless of their status, could be compensated.”
“I learned quite quickly”
New to politics, she learns “quite quickly”. “I built coalitions in each committee that could be seized of the file, going from the UDC to the PS. And together, we managed to change the law in three months.”
In the process, three parties offered him to join their ranks: the PS, the Center and the PLR. She refused at first. “Finally, I realized that it was not circumstantial to Covid, but that there were fundamental problems. And that for that to change, we had to be part of the game here in Bern.”
Estelle Revaz ran for federal elections a year ago under the banner of the PS and was elected.
High value instrument
On the music side, she has just released her latest album “Caprices for Violoncello Solo by Dall’Abaco”. She plays with a cello, made by the violin maker Giovanni Battista Grancino, and which dates from 1679.
The cello has not always been the solo and lyrical instrument that we know it to be, she explains. Dall’Abaco was one of the first to write virtuoso pieces for solo cello: “these caprices are technically formidable”.
Playing with an instrument of such value is not without danger. He sometimes doesn’t sleep at night to make sure his cello is safe.
Some time ago she returned by night train from a concert in Cologne to sit in Bern on Monday morning: “I didn’t sleep all night”, because there was no question that she drops her instrument, which she had attached to her ankle.
Estelle Revaz is also sensitive to Swiss creation. During the pandemic, she recorded works by Genevan Frank Martin (1890-1973) with the Geneva Chamber Orchestra. This composer, extremely well known during his lifetime, has practically fallen into oblivion, because no one took care to bring his works to life after his death.
“Twice as fast”
She learned her rhythm of life from childhood. At 13, her teacher announced to her family that she had a future as a professional musician. His teaching is arranged to allow him to work on his instrument part-time: “We follow the normal program, but we go to school for half the time. We just learn twice as fast.”
When she was 15, her parents decided to leave Paris to return to Switzerland. Estelle Revaz chooses to stay alone in the French capital, in a maid’s room. She followed the correspondence school to be able to devote even more time to her instrument: “At that moment, I really had my destiny entirely in my hands.”
This article was automatically published. Source: ats
