Beaulieu-sur-Mer Festival

Artistic Director : John Fox

Autumn rendez-vous at one of the leading music festival of the Côte d’Azur

 After the great success of the last two editions of Festival de Beaulieu-sur-Mer, the Association of Festival de Beaulieu-sur-Mer, together with the Mayor and Town Council of Beaulieu-sur-Mer, announce the Festival de Beaulieu-sur-Mer 2005 which, from 17^th-25^th September, will offer a Franco-British-Russian themed programme of concerts, lectures and exhibitions, presenting some of the world’s finest British, French and Russian artists.

Last year’s programme was the largest cultural event in France commemorating the centenary of the Entente Cordiale, and received personal messages of support from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and President Chirac, as well as congratulations from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of France and Great Britain. It played to capacity audiences drawn from the region and abroad, and was acclaimed     by international and local press.

This year’s Festival, under the patronage of the Prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes and attended by ambassadors from the three above-mentioned countries, will celebrate the presence of the Russian and British communities in Beaulieu-sur-Mer over the past century and their contribution to the town and its surrounding region; the sixtieth anniversary of the Borodin String Quartet; important moments in Franco-British-Russian cultural relations over the past 250 years; and the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War.  

International artists will include: The Band of the Scots Guards, The Borodin String Quartet commemorating its 60^th anniversary, The Eiffel Trio, The Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Centre of Moscow, The Moscow Rachmaninov Trio, The Orchestre Régional de Cannes, The Russian Vocal Quartet of Nice, the Russian pianist Ludmila BERLINKAYA, the Russian bass Vladimir MATORINE and the Russian pianist Denis MATSUEV, winner of the Tchaikovsky Competition.

The festival’s lecture series will be presented by a distinguished body of academics, diplomats and artists, including Richard Cooper, Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford; Sir John Holmes, British Ambassador to France; former Reuter’s General Manager, Michael Nelson; French music critics André Peyrègne and André Segond; Julie Lawson, Curator of the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland; and Alexis Obolensky, one the great authorities on the history of the Russian community of the Côte d’Azur.

Three exhibitions also highlight the Festival’s Franco-Russian-British theme: “Ossian: Fragments of Ancient Poetry”; “The Russian Winter Season at Beaulieu-sur-Mer”; and “Homage to Anton Chekhov” (see separate information).

The visit of a French warship to the Bay of Beaulieu, together with military parades and a ceremony at the Beaulieu War Memorial performed by the Scots Guards Band and the French Air Force, will enable  the Festival to commemorate, in addition to its other themes, the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

The Festival offers the French, British and Russian communities of the Alpes-Maritimes a unique opportunity to join together in an act of celebration, in homage to the heritage of these three communities in the town, and in appreciation of the important contribution made by each one of them to the creation and development of the Côte d’Azur over the past 150 years.

John Fox

le 1 juillet 2005