Festival Autrement Classique

Festival Autrement Classique: Classical Music Differently, Outdoors and Traveling

Since 2017, the Festival Autrement Classique has transformed the Briare and Giennois territory into an open-air music stage. Born from the desire to make classical music accessible to everyone, this inter-municipal festival offers a week of traveling concerts each summer in exceptional heritage locations: the majestic Pont-Canal de Briare, Romanesque churches, presbytery gardens, locks along the lateral canal to the Loire, and unique Loire landscapes.

An Engaged Artistic Direction

Under the artistic direction of Patrick Langot (cellist) and Jean Manifacier, the festival brings together high-level professional musicians around a deliberately eclectic program. The great works of the classical repertoire — Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms — are presented alongside contemporary pieces and hybrid artistic forms mixing music, readings, and theater. The collective Les Forces Majeures forms the artistic core of the festival.

Concerts in Exceptional Locations

Conceived as a true journey through the territory, the festival invites the public to discover remarkable sites — bridges, churches, heritage sites, or unique landscapes — transformed, for the duration of a concert, into spaces for shared encounter and listening. Among the emblematic locations:

• Pont-Canal de Briare: opening concert on a barge at the foot of this engineering masterpiece inaugurated in 1896
• Saint-Étienne Church of Beaulieu-sur-Loire: chamber music in a Romanesque setting
• Presbytery Garden of Ousson-sur-Loire: intimate open-air concerts
• Mantelot Lock: music by the water
• Château de La Chesnaye: recitals in a private heritage setting
• Bonny-sur-Loire, Place Charles de Gaulle of Briare: festive closing concerts

An Accessible and Unifying Festival

The Festival Autrement Classique stands out for its desire to break down barriers between aesthetics and create bridges between amateur and professional practices. The concerts, free or at low cost (around €15), are aimed at all audiences, from seasoned music lovers to novices. The festival also welcomes students from piano schools and choral ensembles, such as the ensemble EvoE (35 choristers) directed by Pascal Mayer, thus creating a dialogue between generations and levels of practice.

A Strong Territorial Anchoring

Traveling by nature, the festival unfolds in several municipalities of the Berry Loire Puisaye inter-municipal community, contributing to the cultural and tourist dynamism of this Loire region. In one week, eight concerts are offered in as many different locations, inviting spectators to a musical and heritage journey through the Giennois. The festival also encourages soft mobility, with bike tours between concert venues.

Talented Artists

Among the regularly invited musicians: Sophie Marilley (mezzo-soprano), Fabienne Lubrano (flute), Catherine Arnoux (violin), Caroline Donin (viola), Patrick Langot (cello), Pénélope Pontcheval (double bass), Florent Latuga and Romain David (piano). Actors, such as Andreï Turbinsky, enrich the concerts with readings and theatrical staging, creating unique performances where music and words respond to each other.