Photo @PMI

Written by Jérémie Bigorie.

Pianist, piano teacher at the Conservatoire National de Région de Nice, creator and artistic director of the festival "Les Nocturnes du Piano" and president of the association "Le Piano en Liberté", Christine Gastaud can be proud of the work she has accomplished: while in Paris, she was able to listen to the first prize winner of the first edition of the competition (2022), Ryan Wang (15 years old!), who performed on March 31st at the Fondation Louis Vuitton. This was a consecration, both for the young Canadian prodigy and for the expertise of the competition's jury, which was born of Christine Gastaud's intuition: to turn an unusual and atypical place, the Hippodrome de la Côte d'Azur in Cagnes-sur-Mer, into a concert venue. 

Four events share the venue:
- The Recitals of the festival " Les Nocturnes du piano " (from July 3 to 8)
- The " Rencontre des pianistes Grands Amateurs " day (July 3)
- The " Samson François " Junior Piano Competition (July1 and 2)
- The " Samson François " International Piano Competition (July 5 to 9)

Childhood friend - like her from Nice - of our guest, Philippe Bianconi naturally imposed himself as the godfather of the festival - where Rémi Geniet, Florian Noack, Jorge Gonzales, Clément Lefebvre and Théo Fouchenneret performed -, Nicolas Bringuier (Lionel's brother and Bruno Rigutto's former pupil) taking over the artistic direction of the competition, whose organization is ensured solely by volunteers. The competition selects 60 adult and 60 junior candidates. The specifications include, for the older students, a work by Chopin and a work of 20th century French music - the two pillars of the repertoire of Samson François, the tutelary figure of the event. A former student of Christine Gastaud, Antoine Cesari composed the new work for the first edition of the competition, for which registrations are mainly accepted in June.

We were able to discuss by videoconference with François Forcioli-Conti, president of the Cagnes-sur-Mer racecourse, who was keen to make this "real garden on the Mediterranean" (capacity: 350 people) available to the association "Le Piano en liberté". Apart from the beauty of the landscape, with the sea in the background, the acoustics proved to be very convincing without even resorting to the installation of a conch shell - but a "mini-sound system" is provided in case of wind.

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