For over 20 years now, at the meeting-point of so-called “art music” and “contemporary music”, whether written or improvised, the 38e Rugissants [“Roaring 38s”] festival and the Grenoble Jazz Festival have represented highlights in the cultural life of Grenoble and the Département of Isère. They have established themselves as unmissable évents on the contemporary music and jazz scenes, at both national and international level; they both initiated, produced and co-produced a great many offerings performed for the first time, played host to a wide audience, taken over public space and developed a number of educational and awareness-raising initiatives, based on partnerships involving many different bodies.
In recent years, the trend in musical creation, which is tending to break down individual aesthetic genres in favour of cross-disciplinary dynamics, has prompted the two évents to pool their know-how, their remits and their resources, and thus create an updated offering.
From 2011 onwards, this will take the form of a permanent body: the “Centre International des Musiques Nomades”, which will plan activities dedicated to creation all year round, and organise a new festival event called “Les Détours de Babel”, to be held in the spring, in place of the 38e Rugissants and the Grenoble Jazz Festival.
The emphasis will be on “cross-bred” and “cross-cultural” creative initiatives, reflecting the transformations taking place in today’s society, culture and identities, and helping to build tomorrow’s “composite” imaginative worlds.
Each year, a particular theme will be selected: it will seek to be in tune with contemporary issues linked to globalised culture, and to promote the debating of ideas associated with the wider questions of society.
After « Music and Identities » in 2011, the next themes are « Music and Politics » in 2012 and « Music and Religion » in 2013.