The Rocamadour Festival is part of the long artistic tradition that inhabits the cliffs of Rocamadour, from the rock caves to the medieval town, via the spiritual and artistic shock of Francis Poulenc, who was overwhelmed when he crossed the threshold of the chapel on a summer's day in 1936.
A heritage that is both tangible and intangible, and which lives on today in a dialogue between the breathtaking beauty of the site and the music written by man. A far cry from the classical concert, Rocamadour offers a profoundly new experience of music and art. Created in 2006 by a group of music lovers, and directed since 2013 by Emmeran Rollin, it welcomes 10,000 spectators who come to take part in nearly 35 concerts during the second half of August.
Le Concert Spirituel © Louis Nespoulous
Rocamadour - Musique sacrée Festival invents a repertoire that is at once spiritual and open to all, driven by the vision of an art form that uplifts us, featuring religious works as well as symphonies, concertos, chamber music and more. Ensembles such as Le Concert Spirituel (Hervé Niquet, another partner of the Fondation Etrillard), Le Concert des Nations (Jordi Savall), the Compagnie La Tempête, the English choir Tenebrae and renowned soloists such as Renaud Capuçon, Philippe Jaroussky, Anne Queffélec and Alexandre Tharaud have all come together to support this project.
These artists, in turn, have been seduced by the special grace of these concerts, where the spiritual beauty of the setting resonates with that of the music.
Concerto Mendelssohn, 23 August 2022 © Alexis Mestre
The 18th edition of the Festival is dedicated to the universal value of fraternity. Rocamadour, a pilgrimage route for a thousand years and a major tourist destination, is a symbol of encounters between people, whether they are music lovers, holidaymakers, residents of the Lot or artists.
The concerts at the foot of the Cité are the Festival's hallmark, with three exceptional evenings set against the backdrop of the thousand-year-old city. The Fondation Etrillard is supporting the Beethoven Evening, with Renaud Capuçon on violin and conducting the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, on 24 August 2023. Having fallen under the spell of Rocamadour, Renaud Capuçon's visit is a not-to-be-missed event at the Festival.
L’Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne conducted by Renaud Capuçon, 14 September 2021 © Yuri Tavares