Les Apaches!

Apaches! Apaches?

Who are these Apaches we see on stage?

Their origins can be traced back to Ravel and the circle of artists, friends, and music lovers who gathered around him on the eve of World War I. This boisterous group of friends were once called “Apaches!” (bad boys) as they left a café one evening.

This band of musicians, poets, and conductors would meet every week at each other’s homes to share their work. It was an artistic celebration of intertwined visions, where the layering of genres served as the structure. Delage, Viñes, Fargue, Klingsor, and Inghelbrecht… all different, yet all Apaches, united and then dissolved in the night of war. A century later, man has walked on the moon, the phenomenon of musical amplification exists, and the spirit of the Apaches is resurrected. In Paris, in their Belleville neighborhood? No, throughout France. Under the leadership of conductor Julien Masmondet, the new movement, both a tribute and a continuation, aims to present multidisciplinary shows with an ad hoc band.

Depending on the format, in the pit or on stage, up to thirty musicians, all experienced in contemporary music, chamber musicians, all soloists, combine the flexibility of youth with the experience of maturity. And, behind the scores, the Apaches of the 21st century have enlisted the collaboration of established composers as well as young talents representing a variety of aesthetics.

The resurrection took place at the Athénée in 2018, where these new Apaches presented a new production of Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti alongside an opera composed for the occasion by Pascal Zavaro, Manga Café. Two years later, still in Louis Jouvet’s former temple, still on the bridge that connects music to other arts, the launch of the new ensemble was marked by a concert-manifesto celebrating the repertoire of Les Apaches, both past and present.

Since then, their shows have focused on what makes our society tick. This is the Ça vous dérange ? (Does it bother you?) project, in which the group, responding to the 2021 vote on the law for the protection of the sensory heritage of the countryside, gives composers carte blanche for an immersive stroll accompanied by a sound debate. It is also the ambitious Street Art, where today’s music interacts with the performances of a free-runner and an acrobatic dancer to scores by Steve Reich and three associated composers. For the future, it represents infinite possibilities between all the components of live performance, whether technological or artisanal, amplified or not, drawing on comedy, music, vocals, dance, or literature.

Les Apaches, then. Where the commitment is to bring together all types of art on the same stage.

Guillaume Tion

Photos © Quentin Chevrier