40



1983. Fair weather for culture.
Demand and commitment were the order of the day, at least in the early days. Maurice Fleuret, one of the conductors of the new State policy, had ambitions to disseminate contemporary music beyond Parisian circles.

New tools had to be devised. The Ensemble Alternance is one of them. Repertoire and creations are the order of the day in the regions. Those of John Cage and Franco Donatoni have propelled it from the regional to the international rank. What was meant to be ephemeral became a long-term project. 1998 saw the reformulation of the project. 2023 marked the 40th anniversary.

This was not the work of a single person, but of a team combining high-level skills, passion, high standards and curiosity. A cement that guarantees not eternity, but solidity.

What counts cannot always be counted, and what can be counted does not necessarily count (A. Einstein).
No more statistics. The measurable is not part of our project: it's about creation, shared by a community of people gifted with a creative ear, demanding and stretched in the same direction towards a future to be invented.

In today's troubled times, when secondary things become primary, let's draw on John Cage's wry humour: The situation being desperate, everything is now possible...

Let's live in our time and continue to devote ourselves to an astronomical art (K. Stockhausen) that makes us dream.

No hay caminos, hay que caminar... There is no path, you have to walk...(Luigi Nono)

Jean-Luc Menet