Les Folles Journées Polyphoniques de la Vallée du Viaur

A festival of voices in the heart of a wild valley

Nestled between the Tarn and the Aveyron, along the winding gorges of the Viaur, Les Folles Journées Polyphoniques festival offers an extraordinary musical event each summer. For three to four days in early August, vocal ensembles perform in the small medieval and Romanesque chapels scattered throughout the valley's hamlets, offering a striking marriage between millennia-old stone architecture and polyphonies from all eras.

The festival's founding idea is simple and brilliant: to make the natural acoustic spaces of rural chapels resonate with vocal music, a genre for which these buildings were precisely constructed. The result is a unique sound and sensory experience, where the warmth of the stones, the light filtered through the stained-glass windows, and the rising voices form an inseparable whole.

Ensemble Vocal Urmas, at the heart of the project

The festival was founded and is supported by the Ensemble Vocal Urmas, a group created in 1998 in Marseille and directed by Valérie Marquès. The ensemble divides its musical life between the Marseille region and the Tarn, and since its creation, has developed an artistic project centered on vocal polyphony in all its forms: medieval sacred music, Renaissance, baroque, contemporary a cappella compositions, and traditional songs.

Each year, Ensemble Urmas also programs other invited vocal groups — chamber choirs, vocal quartets, a cappella ensembles from Marseille, Paris, Béarn, Switzerland, or Corsica — with whom it shares the stage in the valley's chapels. Recent editions have notably hosted Les Vouèno, Les Fifrelins, Tempvs Fvgit, Ardalh, the Fandango Vocal Quartet, and the Trio Tartine de Clous.

An itinerant festival in rural heritage

The itinerant dimension is at the heart of the identity of Les Folles Journées Polyphoniques. Each edition takes over several chapels and churches located within a perimeter around Jouqueviel, a small village in the Tarn perched above the valley. The venues hosting the concerts vary depending on the edition: Jouqueviel, Montirat, Lagarde-Viaur, La Salvetat-Peyralès, Najac, Pampelonne, Bor-et-Bar, Trévien…

This musical promenade format transforms the festival into a true journey of discovery of the valley's natural and built heritage. For a few hours, the chapels rediscover their vocation as community gathering places, welcoming an audience from across the department and beyond to share this timeless moment.

A polyphonic repertoire from the Middle Ages to the 20th century

The musical program of Les Folles Journées Polyphoniques explores the richness of the European vocal repertoire over several centuries. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance are richly represented, with Flemish sacred polyphonies, Italian madrigals, and Baroque motets. Romantic composers and 20th-century choral masters are also invited, alongside traditional Corsican, Swiss, Béarnais, Northern European, and Spanish songs.

Sacred music holds a prominent place in the program, in perfect coherence with the venues. But the festival also hosts secular repertoires, songs from around the world, and sometimes contemporary creations specially composed for the occasion or for the particular acoustic spaces of the chapels.

Each edition generally offers about ten concerts, complemented by aperitif concerts, a polyphonic buffet, and sometimes mini-conferences on the voice.

A strong territorial commitment

Beyond the musical dimension, Les Folles Journées Polyphoniques play an essential role in promoting the territory of the Viaur Valley, a deep and preserved valley straddling the Tarn and the Aveyron. The festival teams work in close collaboration with the municipalities, local associations, and chapel owners to ensure the project's sustainability and its territorial roots.