"Culture is not only experienced in large rooms" : opera concerts organized on agricultural farms

The “Concerts à la Ferme” operation is a traveling season of classical, lyrical and jazz music shows offered on active farms. This year, more than 40 performances have been imagined in rural communities. Illustration in Bouzincourt, in the Somme, where three renowned artists performed in front of a captivated audience.

Lyrical flights in the middle of hay bales. This Wednesday, June 10, the Letesse family’s farm welcomed three artists to its agricultural shed, who came to present a lyrical repertoire, with some popular songs. For an hour, accordionist Rémi Poulakis, violinist Arnaud Thorette and mezzo-soprano Irina de Baghy presented a lyrical repertoire ranging from Mozart to Bach, while performing more popular songs by Edith Piaf.

A musical scene in front of a hundred people present, residents of Bouzincourt or not. Two friends from Péronne say at the end of the show: “We both had a very good evening. It was very varied, there was a great atmosphere. For a first step into opera, we couldn’t do better“.

Another spectator underlines the “atypical setting. It’s really nice, we’ll remember it. I had never seen a concert like this“.

“I’m delighted to be here“, rejoices Irina de Baghy. The Franco-Canadian is not her first attempt with this operation”Concerts à la ferme“. “The idea is to bring the happiness we have from doing this job“.

The singer, who began her career at 6 years old in musical comedies in North America, before studying in France, does not hesitate to return each time to the farms, despite “the conditions. Above all, it’s cold. I have a double scarf, because it’s precisely for the cold. These are not optimal conditions, especially for voices and fingers, but you have to be ready to test, be a little off-road“.

For her, “the difference is that we also see the audience directly, unlike in large opera halls. There I can allow myself to be next to them, to walk around. I sometimes try to make them dance, to get them up. There is a real closeness, and we as artists, we have an honest reaction from them and that is what nourishes us“.

Victoria Letesse, hostess, is hosting this event for the first time. At 22 years old, the one who took over the family land two years ago, says to herself “delighted with this evening. It went well“.

The latter was able to show her thirty cows and calves, and talk about her mixed crop production. “I took the opportunity to discover things, and we thus show that on a farm, you can have something other than work. We have to come and discover, we have to see how it goes, that we do things well, we do the best we can“.

In the village of some 500 inhabitants, the concert “was able to show the farm in another way, even to people from the village who don’t necessarily know it, who never asked too many questions“.

Launched in 2023 in Hauts-de-France by the Compiègnoise association, “All my dreams sing“, the traveling concerts developed last year with a first national broadcast in 8 departments. The program was further expanded this year with a presence in 15 departments for around forty concerts offered.

Arnaud Thorette, artistic co-director of the festivalConcerts à la Ferme“, be happy with the success of the initiative, think “just after Covid. After the health crisis, artists were mistreated, wanted to find other meanings in their profession. It was perhaps necessary to find other places, other ways of presenting music outside of concert halls“.

It’s quite a militant act, we really want to show that culture is accessible to everyone.

Arnaud Thorette, artistic co-director of the “Concerts à la Ferme” festival

Funded thanks to the support of financial partners, private foundations, and “a little public support“, the organizer considers himself to be in “a fairly militant act, we really want to show that culture is accessible to everyone and that there is a lot of work to really be done in the countryside, close to the people and that culture is not only experienced in large concert halls“.

From 2026, Concerts à la Ferme is entering a new stage of its development with Ruralité vivant. This mediation program, currently in deployment, aims to offer “participatory artistic workshops, interventions with youth, times of dialogue between residents, farmers and artists, as well as projects built as close as possible to local realities“The goal is to gradually install.”a more regular artistic presence in partner territories“.

For concerts, the evenings continue. Next stops in the Oise on June 12, 13, 19 and 20 in Bazancourt, Roy-Boissy, Fresnoy-en-Thelle and Fontaine-Chaalis.