Musical Stay at the Château de la Vérie

ℹ Event discontinued. The Vendée Art et Musique association, organizer of the Musical Stay at Château de la Vérie, has been dissolved. The last publicly documented edition took place in June 2024 (five concerts at the château from June 25 to 27, 2024, HelloAsso ticketing). The official website of the association now explicitly states «The association is dissolved». This page remains online as a memory of the event and to guide visitors who wish to find its history.

An intimate gathering of music and heritage

The Musical Stay at Château de la Vérie was a unique experience: an immersive chamber music festival where professional musicians and the public shared the same roof for an entire weekend. Organized by the Vendée Art et Musique association, the event took place annually in the heart of Château de la Vérie, a 16th-century stately home listed as a Historic Monument since 1964, nestled in a seventeen-hectare park in Challans.

An exceptional setting

Built at the end of the 16th century for André Bouhier, treasurer to King Henri IV, Château de la Vérie is an architectural gem of the Vendée bocage. Its origins date back to the 9th century, when a first fortification was erected to protect the territory from Norman invasions. Today transformed into a charming hotel, the château offered a remarkable acoustic setting for chamber music: salons with antique woodwork, terraces overlooking the park, and the hushed atmosphere of a bygone era residence.

Five concerts, two conferences, an exceptional weekend

The program revolved around five concerts spread over three days, complemented by two musical conferences led by passionate speakers. From string trio to piano quartet, as well as original formations (solo piano, violin, oboe), the program explored the great works of the chamber music repertoire: Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Debussy, Ravel, and many others. The originality of the festival lay in its «stay» formula: participants were accommodated at the château, shared meals with the musicians, and experienced music in rare proximity.

A human-scale festival

Far from impersonal large venues, the Musical Stay at La Vérie cultivated the art of encounter. Each edition gathered about a hundred participants in a warm and friendly atmosphere. The exchanges between artists and public, fostered by shared meals and moments of relaxation in the park, made this festival an incomparable musical and human experience, at the gates of the Vendée Marais breton and the island of Noirmoutier.

The end of an adventure

The official website of the Vendée Art et Musique association (vendee-art-et-musique.webador.fr) now indicates its dissolution. For any questions regarding the association's legacy, the contact provided on the site is: [email protected]. Château de la Vérie also continues its activity as a charming hotel and remains accessible to the public outside the context of the festival.