Zahia Ziouani: “Classical music has its place everywhere”

What does the Fête de la Musique mean to you?

Moments of sharing. I grew up in Pantin, in Seine-Saint-Denis. When I was a teenager, in the 1990s, I studied viola at the conservatory: the month of June was a busy time, full of concerts. Later, from 2004, still anchored in the 93, I took the reins of the Stains conservatory and I sought to make this celebration a day where the great repertoire could reach all audiences. In the town hall garden, for example, we offered extracts from Beethoven symphonies associated with pieces by Saint-Saëns, jazz tunes or film scores. For entire families, it was the first time they heard classical works.

How did music come into your life?

Even before I was born… My father, who left Algeria for France in 1962, had become an avid listener of France Culture and a record collector. When my mother was pregnant with my twin sister and I, he would spin his vinyls. Then, around the age of 7, I had two revelations: the opening of Marriage of Figaro, of Mozart, so delicate and sparkling, and the first movement of the Pastoral Symphony, by Beethoven, both strong and soothing. Their energy resonated within me, I felt like these tunes had been written for me.

What special role did your father play?

As he had been raised in the mountains of Kabylie, without being able to go to school, culture was sacred in his eyes. He did everything to make us curious, my sister Fettouma, my little brother Mehdi and me. He made us read The World and history books. I remember that at 10 years old, he gave me a biography of De Gaulle by Jean Lacouture. He took us to visit castles, to the cinema… But as he worked in the restaurant business in the evening, it was my mother who followed our schooling and enrolled us at the Pantin conservatory. First my brother, because there was only one place left, then Fettouma and me.

You learned the guitar at 8 years old, the viola at 12 years old. What has practicing these instruments brought you?

The guitar allowed me to find myself alone and build my own universe. By taking on all the roles – the melody and the accompaniment – ​​I was able to develop global listening skills. But seeing my sister leave for the orchestra with her cello, I wanted to follow her. I wanted to experience this collective adventure and play the symphonies that I loved. So I started playing the viola, a key instrument that makes the link between low and high sounds. Very quickly, I felt that I wanted not only to be part of the group but to lead it.

So you realize that your vocation is to be a conductor…

At the age of 14, for the Musique à l’ ink fraîche festival, in Persan (Val-d’Oise), I participated in an ensemble which brought together students from the Pantin conservatory and professionals. As I did not play in the second part of the work we were performing, the director of the conservatory, Sergio Ortega, asked me to take charge of the orchestra. By donning the costume of chef, I, the kid from a city in Pantin, forgot my fear of the future, I felt in my place. I saw the looks of others change, turning into admiration. I started borrowing conductors from the library and watching documentaries about the maestros on TV. Then, by attending masterclasses, I had the chance to meet the one who touched me the most: the Romanian Sergiu Celibidache. It was he who taught me management, with an incredible level of demand, which still inspires me today.

However, when you arrive in your final year in music at Racine high school in Paris, you are made to understand that this job is not for you…

As soon as preparations for the end-of-year concert began, I was confronted with boys who refused to rehearse under the leadership of “a girl from the suburbs” and left the orchestra. I quickly understood that the resistance of these high school students was only a foretaste of the discrimination at work in the world of culture. Fortunately, I did not go through these ordeals alone, but with my sister Fettouma, who became an extraordinary cellist.

It was with her that, at just 20 years old, in 1998, you founded your own ensemble, Divertimento.

If I had not created my orchestra, I would probably have remained limited to the role of occasional guest conductor and I would not have been able to carry out the artistic line that was close to my heart. However, I wanted to interweave the classical repertoire with other musical genres and other modes of expression, such as dance, to make the public think about today’s world: the place of women, disability, the dialogue of cultures, the environment… This is what I have always done, until my last show, Cosmopolises, a musical odyssey in the Mediterranean coupled with an ecological fable, translated into song-sign for the hearing impaired. But the glass ceiling remains: at almost 50 years old, I spend my time raising funds to be able to practice my profession. And only two women are at the head of national orchestras in France.

From 2007, it was in Algeria, the birthplace of your parents, that you were entrusted with the reins of a national orchestra. How did you feel?

Immense happiness! I had always maintained a link with the country of my origins, since I came to see my family almost every summer before the dark decade of the 1990s. My father had experienced the Algerian war and had gone into exile at independence in the hope of a better future. During the first concert, he was overcome with tears. My experience as a chef in Algeria was all the more unique as it lasted until 2013.

In the summer of 2024, new Everest: you direct Divertimento during the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games, at the Stade de France. What memory do you keep of it?

The Olympics will remain one of the most beautiful moments of my career. For me, it was essential to share this global event in this territory of Seine-Saint-Denis with those who, sometimes for more than twenty-five years, helped me to make my message resonate: classical music has its place everywhere, especially in working-class neighborhoods. Especially since when we started, many media and industry professionals were reluctant to come see us and described us as amateurs…

Can we speak of a moment of grace? As a Muslim, are you carried by your faith?

To give this poetic version of The Marseillaise, it took work and talent. But I can’t help but think that there is also something miraculous when all the members of an orchestra seem to form one single voice. It is an osmosis comparable to the love that unites a couple or a mother and her child. More broadly, certain music is so perfect that one would say it was composed by God. As for my faith, it supports me in my daily struggles to go beyond my simple personal interest.

The documentary Zahia, un temps d’avance, and the fiction Divertimento, released in 2022 and 2023 respectively, already portray you as a model. What do you want to convey?

When I was a teenager, I had a lot of self-doubt because I didn’t see any female conductors that I could relate to. Today, I tour schools, high schools, conservatories, associations, prisons… to prove to young people that anything is possible. That they can believe in any of their dreams. On one condition: work, work and work again. It is also with this aim of excellence that in 2008, with Fettouma, we opened the Divertimento Academy, where the members of the orchestra serve as mentors to the virtuosos of tomorrow.