Olivia Gay, the cellist who plays in the middle of the forest

The day before, the sky seemed to be clearing up and Olivia Gay was about to take a van to Brittany to start her tour. And then, the weather forecasts turned stormy, forcing her to postpone her first concert… After all, this is the risk of the singular project in which the 36-year-old cellist has embarked: going on tour in the forests of France.

Brocéliande was to be the first step. “My suitcases were ready”, she said with a sad smile, in her vast wooden house in Seine-et-Marne, with a clear view of the Seine and the forest of Fontainebleau. If the weather permits, she should nevertheless play in the park of the castle of Pierrefonds (Oise) on May 6, in the forest of Rambouillet (Yvelines) on May 13, of Plaisir on June 10, of Barbizon (Seine-et-Marne) June 24… And in other wooded areas until the end of summer, including the Gironde forest of La Teste-de-Buch, exactly one year after the fire that ravaged more than 7,000 hectares.

Charm music lovers in the middle of nature by interpreting eclectic works, to better warn them of the importance of the forest ecosystem and the effects of global warming. “We keep being told about protecting the planet, talking about it as an outside entity. But once in the heart of the forest, in the shade of the trees and the cheek caressed by a breeze, you feel how much we are part of the elements, how much its preservation is a common cause”, defends Olivia Gay, who prefers “going to stimulate the sensitive rather than the intellect”.

She will travel to France with a foldable mobile stage and a Bechstein concert piano on which Célia Oneto Bensaid and Aurélien Pontier will play alternately.

A partnership with the ONF

The Alder King, by Schubert (1815), the sequel In the forestby David Popper (1882), the hopping Butterfly, by Gabriel Faure (1884), The Silence of the Forest, by Dvořák (1883)… An album containing certain pieces was released in September 2022, Whisper Me a Tree (Fuga Libera). “There are two ways of evoking the forest in music: trying to imitate its sounds with the instrument, the song of a bird, the blowing of the wind, or else evoking the feeling that wins us over by going there. strolling, as Dvořák does, which translates well the fullness it can offer. »

After having tested this concert format in situ last summer, in the forest of La Grange, in Yerres (Essonne), or that of Bercé, in Sarthe, Olivia Gay approached the National Forestry Office (ONF), careful to obtain the appropriate authorizations. The exchange turned into a partnership. The musician born in Belfort, trained among others by cellist Marc Coppey, has been named ambassador of the ONF-Agir pour la forêt endowment fund, launched in 2019. “I donate 60% of what I receive on the album to the fund and I encourage festivals and the public to make a donation after the concert”, she details.

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