WONDERFUL WORLD

In this humanistic ode to nature, French cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca presents a packed programme on the theme of saving the planet. He uses his own eloquent instrument in a unique and unprecedented project of solidarity.

Wonderful World is a project of multiple inputs, all converging on Christian-Pierre La Marca’s awareness of the need to save our planet. As he explains, ‘Music has the ability to awaken consciences, to make people more sensitive, without trying to convince or mobilize them. Music is a short circuit that goes straight to the heart.’ His sense of engagement has already found artistic expression in his creation of the Concert for the Planet in 2019. Today it is embodied in this multi-ethnic project of many-voiced solidarity featuring classical, neo-classical, world music and jazz, all intoning the same song of the Earth.

Concert-show, imagined and created by cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca, as part of his commitment to raising public awareness about saving our planet as well as issues of protecting our environment. This project interweaves several art forms in order to raise public awareness to the beauty of the world and nature… At the same time, a way to alert people. An apolitical vision that awakens consciousness through beauty and the artistic force of multiple arts.

An immersive concert staged with diffusion of images, around the repertoire for cello with piano, orchestra and narrator, in the form of an Ode to Nature. The architecture of the project is skilfully studied, taken from various texts that are significant in our history, in connection with the preservation of our “Common House”. It questions our current global situation, the climate emergency and outlines prospects for ecological conversion. Themes speak about nature, cities, animals, endangered species, climate change… An immersive journey conducive to reflection, meditation and public awareness.

In the background, films, images and works by photographer and director Yann Arthus-Bertrand are projected on a big screen (or as a mapping in a special building). A selection is projected – according to particular sequences – which illustrates different themes of the project, to create a perfect alchemy between music, writings and images.

Works are borrowed from different styles from baroque to film music, including jazz and moderns. They interact alternately with the narration of engaging texts by women and men who have marked the history of ecology. The writings are taken from poems, speeches, reflections by Lucrèce, Rousseau, Ghandi, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, De Noailles, Châteaubriand, Rhabi.  These texts are narrated by an actor.

Songs of wonder, questioning, wake up calls, songs of prayer : all are heard in the course of these twenty-six titles, reflected in the images by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. 

The cello, in the hands of Christian- Pierre La Marca, has often been compared to the human voice, in its handling of the melodic lines and curves, its flexibility, its lyrical intensity. In addition, an ensemble of musicians from the Orchestre de Paris lends its sup- port, with bespoke arrangements of a variety of pieces ranging through Harlen’s Over the Rainbow, Fauré’s song Après un rêve, Summertime by Gershwin, The Swan by Saint-Saëns, I giorni by Ludovico Einaudi, The Hours by Philip Glass, and Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars.

J.S. Bach : Suite I BWV 1007 – Prélude pour violoncelle seul (2′)

WONDER
G. Fauré : « Après un rêve » pour violoncelle et piano (3’)
R. Schumann : Fantasiestücke op.73  I. Zart und mit Ausdruck (3’)

THE HUMAN CRY
F. Say : Sonate pour violoncelle et piano « Four Cities » (11’)
The issue of water
1. Sivas
Pollution, cities and waste
2. Hopa  

THE EARTH CRY

The biodiversity lost
Forests, Amazonia : earth’s lung
Dvorak : « Silent Woods » (From the Bohemian Forest) (5’45)

The sea, the oceans
Ramirez : Alfonsina y el Mar   (5’)

Endangered species
Rameau : « Rappel des oiseaux » pour piano seul (2’30)
C. Saint-Saëns : « Le Cygne » pour violoncelle et piano  (3’)
N. Rimsky-Korsakov : « Le vol du Bourdon » (1’30)

Global warming
G. Gershwin : « Summertimes » pour violoncelle et piano  (4’)

INTERDEPENDANCE BETWEEN MAN AND NATURE

Night
H. Mancini : « Moon river » pour violoncelle et piano  (argmt: Gassot/La Marca)(3’)

Day
L. Einaudi : « I Giorni » pour violoncelle et piano  (argmt: Gassot/La Marca) (4’)

Seasons
N. Frahm : « Ambre » extrait de Wintermusik pour violoncelle et piano  (argmt: Gassot/La Marca) (4’)

AWARENESS
P.I. Tchaikovsky : Valse Sentimentale (2’10)

SONG OF PRAISE
E. Bloch :  « Prayer » pour violoncelle et piano  (5’) ou
O. Messiaen : « Louange à l’éternité de Jésus » (9’)

PROSPECTS & AWAKENING
Harold Harlen : « Over the rainbow » pour violoncelle et piano (2’40)
Piazzolla : Le Grand Tango pour violoncelle et piano (6’)
Armstrong : « What a wonderful world » pour violoncelle et piano (argmt: Gassot/La Marca) (2’30)