Laetitia Corcelle: “Singing creates a bond”

She sang before she could speak. At least that’s what his parents, music lovers but not musicians, always told him. His voice? It was “that of a little boy capable of great high notes” she confides. At college, she studied music theory, learned the transverse flute and joined amateur choirs.

But, in his modest background, we do not imagine that singing could be a profession. Also, it is towards letters that she first turns. After a master’s degree at the Sorbonne, she became a journalist. A profession that she will practice for a few years, before at the age of 30, the emergency catches up with her. “So as not to regret not having done it”, she entered the National Regional Conservatory of Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin) in 2006. She left three years later with prizes for lyrical singing and chamber music.

Open-door beauty

This dual culture – literary and musical – is his trademark. She uses it on stage but also in her way of approaching transmission. Because what drives Laetitia Corcelle above all is the taste for sharing: “Singing brings people together, creates bonds and erases hierarchies by putting everyone on an equal footing,” she says before specifying: “Music is a vector of beauty that transports me and that I cannot keep for myself alone. »

For fifteen years, she has put this conviction into practice by leading choral singing courses and workshops for amateurs. In 2017, in Rocamadour (Lot), she created the Ensemble la Sportelle, which she directed until 2024 before setting up, in Tours (Indre-et-Loire), the Ensemble Ô. With this flexible formation of four to eight singers, she boldly diversifies the repertoires by developing her vocal range, which ranges from classical to the large symphonic choir through contemporary works one per voice. At the same time, she is a chorister in professional ensembles such as Mélisme(s) in Rennes (Ille-etVilaine), or Exosphère in Strasbourg, and performs with the Girard Quartet or in a duo with the pianist François Cornu.

Today she puts this thirst for meeting and breaking down barriers to the service of the Via Aeterna festival (of which Bayard is a partner), which takes place around Mont-Saint-Michel. Appointed artistic director of the 2026 edition, which will bring together 250 artists at different sites in the bay for twenty concerts from September 13 to October 4, she has designed a program that amalgamates and mixes cultures, eras and styles.

This year’s theme, “the red line”, manifests its ambition: “Making the border a link. We too often forget that before being a place of separation, the border is a zone of contact between humans. » The opening concert illustrates this desire. It will take place outdoors, on the Couesnon dam, a highly symbolic place, since this small river historically delimits Normandy and Brittany. It will bring together accordionist Félicien Brut and the entire Normandie Rouen opera house for a program entitled “From Piazzolla to Galliano”.

A Ave in Lourdes

But before facing the winds of the bay and continuing the recording of the next album by Ensemble Ô, which is scheduled for release in November, Laetitia Corcelle is preparing for another highlight: the national pilgrimage to Lourdes. Invited to give a sung conference on “Ave Maria in music”, she will also supervise, on August 13 and 14, the rehearsals of the Mosaïque pilgrim ensemble.

The fruit of this work, a Hail Mary, will be interpreted by its trainees during the Angelus on August 15, Assumption Day. Almost embarrassed by the magnitude of this task, she confesses: “I’m too small for that! » This modesty, however, takes nothing away from its ambition: to make beauty shine, everywhere and for everyone. Knowing that “the greatest music, that which elevates, is always performed at human height”.