“In a church, song mingles with past prayers”

How was the idea of ​​singing in churches?

A few months ago, the production house that organized the church tour of Natasha St-Pierre, in 2018, contacted me telling me that my voice and my style corresponded well to this type of frame. I took this as an artistic challenge. I started to think about what these monuments represented for me. Beyond their sometimes remarkable architectural or heritage dimension, churches are refuges open to all. You can meditate there if you are a believer or simply open the door, taste silence, look for light, candle or outstretched hand, whatever its spirituality or convictions.

What do you expect from this tour, as a singer?

The acoustics of the churches is often incredible. Very different from that of a concert hall. The voice resonates differently. In a church, the sound seems to mix with the imprints of murmurs of those who prayed or cried between these walls. One has the impression that we do not sing alone and that we are addressed as much to the public present as to souls who have passed by there.

Is this this feeling that was born the idea of ​​writing a new album?

I couldn’t see myself just making a “best of” of my songs in a place so carriers. So I looked for a new musicality by launching myself in reading the Gospels. Some passages appeared to me as life lessons and acted as clicks. I started to write these texts imbued with spirituality and freedom to think.

The first track of the album is titled Pagan. Isn’t that a contradiction?

No, because this first song allows me to introduce myself. Being of Jewish confession, I feel like a novice, a pagan, when I enter a Catholic church.

You celebrate plural identities, of which you are a fine example, as proud to be French as your Berber, Jewish and Italian roots …

We are all plural! The world is not divided between good and bad, pure and impure. Our roots are woven from different places and stories, mixed families. I was born in the 1980s and I grew up in a blessed period when the question of identity, religion, belonging was not experienced as a subject of tension. I hope that the gaze we look at on the other and the world will be redefined by the young generations.

Isn’t it a heavy task that you assign to them?

I am one of those who benefited from the fruits of the struggles led by their parents and their grandparents. When I was young, society managed to cultivate a form of “living together” on the ethnic, religious and also social levels. I don’t know what happened, but at one point there must have been something we did not do. And today it is our children who may pay it. It seems very important to me to think about it. With them, of course!

Regarding the future, you sing “Tomorrow is so far. We forget that before tomorrow, we have today”. For you, is the world going too fast?

Yes. To the point that he no longer takes the time to think. We eat too much, we consume too much, we use our phone too much, we do everything too much. In this infernal spiral of performance and result, we forget that it is important to be bored, to be idle, to contemplate. This is why I sing “Happiness is in the moment and not necessarily in tomorrow”.

Do you think the need for spirituality is greater today than in the past?

In today’s world, there are things that go beyond us. And in my opinion, spirituality is necessary to arouse a new breath, to retrieve links and imagine a more peaceful future.

About woven links, you often invite artists to your albums. In this one, the singer Jacinthe, of the brothers, and the violinist Camille Berthollet . What do these collaborations bring to you?

During my career, people have reached my hand and I also gave boost. I understand music as well. For me, it is synonymous with sharing, open door to culture and the world.

Did a moment with the public score you more than the others?

Difficult to choose, as I was filled on this plan. Once, when I sang in Lille, I suddenly lost my voice. A pregnant woman got up and finished the chorus that I could not sing anymore. The rest of the room continued in chorus. I understood that my songs do not belong to me. Another time, in Beirut, more than ten years ago, when Lebanon was going through a political crisis, women, veiled or not, of all the confessions, were in a hurry at the foot of the podium with a banner where they had written: “Julie, thank you for coming. Suddenly, it made me understand that my singer’s work had a real use.

You have revealed trauma suffered, including a miscarriage and sexual assault. How do you surmount such injuries?

These are two very different things. One in three women makes a miscarriage. Sometimes you have to know how to wait and trust nature. I had since the chance to have two children. So I’m not to complain about this side. Regarding the assault, statistically, it is even more than half of women who have undergone touching or rape. I had bad luck, little girl, to have a bad meeting. It’s important to talk about it. First of all because we are no longer alone, and then because the victims should stop being ashamed of being. So, even if this fight is above all personal, if my voice can serve as a megaphone, so much the better. It is also a way of educating our children to be more vigilant and perhaps to react.

How do you manage to lead your artist career and your daily life as a wife and mother?

I am like all the working moms. In the morning, I accompany my children to school. In the evening, I try to be at home at 6:30 p.m. with my husband, who is a film producer, we get better so that one of us is always present. I am lucky that my parents live not far from my home, so they also give us good helping hand.

How, despite the difficulties you have raised, stay optimistic and believe in a better future? The album The path Can he show us the way?

(Laughs) Ah! I really wouldn’t have this claim! I consider that everyone must be able to follow the path they have drawn. This album includes some keys which allowed me to always find moments of grace, beauty and also light. The objective being, above all to show, that one should especially never fear to reach out to others.