Medinea Session 2016

In 2016, support was provided for two projects undertaken by two ensembles. Training sessions took place in Egypt, Spain and France. The two ensembles benefited all year round from the educational and artistic support of the composer Fabrizio Cassol, with whom trainee musicians studied in July 2015 at the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra (MYO) intercultural creation session. They were also supervised by Ahmed el Maghraby, Artistic Director of the Makan Center for Culture and Arts in Cairo, and by Brian Cole, Dean of Academic Affairs at Berklee College of Music in Valencia.

At the MYO’s training sessions in Aix-en-Provence, both ensembles were supervised by the choirmaster Philippe Franceschi and the choreographer Léa Canu-Ginoux, with whom they devised an outreach project. They also took several training workshops run by Christiane Louis, the head of the “Developing your career” training programme at the Philharmonie de Paris, who provided them with tools to develop their dissemination strategies.
After these training sessions, the two ensembles put on a public presentation of their work. They then went on tour in several Mediterranean countries, also developing an outreach project in each country.

Supported projects in 2016:

Cairo Jazz Station: at the crossroads between jazz and contemporary Middle Eastern music

Trainee musicians

• Abdallah Abozekry, saz (Egypt)
• Ismail Altunbas, percussions (Turkey)
• João Barradas, accordion (Portugal)
• Loris Lari, double basse (Italy)

Public presentation

• 19 July 2016 – Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (France)

Ziryab and us: a new vision of the Arab-Andalusian heritage

Trainee musicians

• Sergio de Lope, flute (Espagne)
• Abir el Abed, voice (Maroc)
• Yoav Eshed, guitar (Israel)
• Colin Heller, violin/nyckelharpa/mandolin (France)
• Sergio Martinez, percussions (Spain)

Public presentation

• 19 July 2016 – Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (France)