Chartres: the University of Free Time offers a choral workshop, under the leadership of a choirmaster

Singing brings them together every Thursday, from 4:45 p.m., in a large room on the Pauline-Kergomard site, near the school of the same name. ” It’s a pleasure. It’s my way of expressing myself. Singing along in a group is fun. Being in a team, in symbiosis, in communion… I always look forward to the next lesson. Marcelle Lafontaine, also a chorister for twenty years, is one of the first students of this choral workshop, offered by the Chartres University of Free Time (UCTL), since October.

Like her, twenty other people are registered but the winter evils forced some voices to be absent, during the last rehearsal. “We have all the profiles, beginners, people who like to sing finding themselves available, and keen people who have done years of choral singing”, describes Claude Jouannet-Lefranc, the choir director.

Le secret…

It was she who suggested this new activity to the president of UCTL.

In the room, the usual conditioning begins for the fourteen present, including two men. Small exercises of physical relaxation which, without that being the goal, crack a few cervicals, shoulders… For the work of breathing, each other empties and fills with air, while the singing teacher takes care of breath management. Continuing on the listening exercises, the group forms a small circle and practices the passing of sounds, as it would circulate, within it, a ball, from hand to hand.

The secret to being harmonious

More “hou hou hou hou hou” then the last collective “oui.iiiié.é.é.é.é.aaaa..”, to the rhythm of the piano, to finish warming up their voices, and the student choristers seize their sheet music notebook. “There can be apprehension, because a lot of people don’t know how to read notes. But it’s not a brake, it’s a visual support with which we become familiar little by little. I give little tips, advice to demonize the thing, ”underlines the manager who embellishes the sessions with her little touches of humor.

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The students settle down according to the tessitura, from the lowest on one side to the highest on the other. A melting pot of voices that Claude Jouannet-Lefranc strives to harmonize over the sessions. “All this is done in music and in listening. Everyone can sing, everyone can make sounds. That’s not why the “singing instrument” is perfect. So you have to work. We work on the ears, on the vocals… The secret for it to be harmonious is to listen to each other. We all have the same desire to move forward and do great things. »

Three four ! The choirmaster begins the first notes and her apprentice choristers sing the first song L’Abeille. Then La Boulangerie, Scarborough Fair, Are the girls of La Rochelle… While the songs follow one another, it is impossible to hide behind his shyness, Claude Jouannet-Lefranc hears everything! And asks: “Stronger! Corrects: “Together on the “the””. Warns: “the ”é”, when you open your mouth to make high notes, will be a little distorted…” Explains: “When you sing in unison, you will sing softer”…
Listening to the evolution of this nascent choral group, she smiles: “It’s a pleasure to model neophyte people towards knowledge, the beauty of sound, of harmonies, to teach them that! This pleasure when we are in a sound environment that envelops us…”

A theatrical choir director

“I have been working with choirs in Eure-et-Loir for about thirty years,” says Claude Jouannet-Lefranc, the choir director of the choral workshop of the Chartres University of Free Time. Between music and her, it’s a story of passion for more than fifty years. Professor of singing and choral singing, a graduate of the conservatory of Chartres, the latter has also done theatre. “I take great pleasure in the scene”, says the one who was part of the troop of Tréteaux lyriques for a long time. Which earned him to play at the theater of Chartres, in particular, in various musical shows, such as Les Fantaisies d’Orphée, La Flute enchantée.

Chemcha Rabhi