Maurice Ravel
The ambitious project of a new musical and cultural space, the European Music Center (EMC), in Bougival, where Bizet and Tourgueniev lived, was launched on Thursday at the Elysée Palace with the support of President Emmanuel Macron. Bougival is a commune in the Yvelines department (Île-de-France region). Bougival is located 15.3 km from the center of Paris, in its western suburbs.
In Bougival, in a landscaped park that will connect the houses of George Bizet, Pauline Viardot and Ivan Tourgueniev, a new musical and cultural space, the European Music Centre (CEM), designed and run by Jorge Chaminé, will be created. At the same time a place of intense musical life in the heart of Europe, a bridge between the arts and disciplines, it will be a place of encounter and sharing, a bearer of humanist values.
Within this vast domain, the main elements and beating heart of the project, will be the very buildings of the European Music Centre, a high-level music teaching centre for young musicians in training.
The project is described as follows: « In the fruitful wake of the history of the estate, the 19th century artistic Europe of Viardot-Tourgueniev-Bizet, the CEM will be a place of transmission and interdisciplinary exchanges around European romantic music. It will promote partnerships with schools and conservatories, and develop student exchanges to be the start of an Erasmus of music radiating in the region, in France and in Europe. »
