Royaumont Transcultural music 2026 - New Orleans: the song of roots

In partnership with the musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac

Teachers

Anne Paceo drummer, composer
Big Chief Juan Pardo singer, musician, dancer, chief of the Golden Comanche tribe of Louisiana

Presentation

The Transcultural Music Campus invites a “master” from a traditional culture, and a “ferryman” who is an expert in the dialogue between tradition and creation. These two artists pass on their knowledge and experience to ten musicians, and/or singers, and/or composers from all horizons, and invite them toexperiment with the process of collective transcultural creation.

The Transcultural Music Campus is looking for artists (candidates) who have knowledge of non-Western and Western cultures in all their multiplicities, and who wish to encounter musical languages far removed from their usual practice, in order to imagine and create new forms of expression together.

In 2026, the Campus Musiques transculturelles will take artists on a musical journey to the heart of New Orleans, a land of crossbreeding par excellence. At the crossroads of Africa, Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean, this city has for centuries embodied a unique force of musical transformation – the cradle of jazz, blues, funk, Creole sacred music, African and European cultures.

The aim of this new edition is for each participant toquestion his or her own musical roots, opening up a dialogue between traditions, current practices and plural artistic identities. Through a collective approach based on orality, listening and improvisation, as well as writing, the Transcultural Music Campus offers an exploration of heritages, gestures and musical forms that intersect, reinvent and resonate with the challenges of the contemporary world.

To embody this journey, two major figures guide the group: drummer and composer Anne Paceo, a versatile artist at the crossroads of jazz and traditional music, and Big Chief Juan Pardo, tribal chief and tradition-bearer of the “Black Indians” of New Orleans, heir to a living culture of spirituality, memory, ritual and rhythmic trepidation.

Organized by the Royaumont Foundation in partnership with the musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, the Campus Musiques transculturelles takes place over a dozen days of workshops, bodywork and lectures, culminating in public performances at the Les Carrières Saint Roch festival (Luzarches) and the musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac (Paris).

Like the Campus Voix Nouvelles, dedicated to written music, and taking place in parallel, it is an invitation to compose together, from what connects us deeply, our roots.