The contexte

What if musicians spread all over the city ? 

Les Musicollages were created when the Cité de la Musique in Marseille wished to show its multiple identities and make them resonate through out the city. 

A group of commissioners, members of the management and teaching team, commissioned an original musical piece to the composer-musician-performer Jacques Siron. Under his conducting, more than two hundred Cité's pupils, professors and artists participated in a series of original performances, in which the music meets other forms of expression (dance, writing, photography...) in unexpected locations. 

The commission

Les Musicollages took place in three phases. At first the pupils were entrusted with the organization of small intimate concerts to which they invited relatives, friends and neighbors. It was the Multisérenade. Then, during a week, the musicians scattered through out the city. They played in a hospital, offered "musical goodies" to passers-by, turned upside down an entire library, and invested a square with twelve pianos. Finally, to document this unusual story, Gilles Coudert made a movie. Hopefully it will allow these artistic and human adventures to proliferate. 

This participative and polyphonic work, in a lively and playful way, gave substance to a wish, room for utopia : merging the distance between art and life. 

In 2013, during the European Capital of Culture, Jacques Siron and professors at the Cité de la Musique will gather again for new musical performances in public places : The Musidécollages. These performances will accompany the inauguration of the sculptures in The Chemin des Fées project by Lucy and Jorge Orta. 

Jacques Siron

Jacques Siron was born in Geneva in 1949. He lives and works in Geneva.