She is one of the most promising young chefs of her generation. The Lille Lucie Leguay was rewarded on March 1, 2023 at the Victories of Classical Music, broadcast on France 3, in the category “revelation conductor”. Interview on a course without false note.
At 33, Lille’s Lucie Leguay already has a solid career behind her. After having been assistant conductor at the Orchester National de Lille, Ile-de-France and Picardie, she currently assists Mikko Franck at the prestigious Orchester philharmonique de Radio France. No wonder she won 1is March 2023 a Victory for classical music, category “revelation conductor”.
She explains, with a big smile on her face:It’s very pleasing, it’s recognition from the professional world and it encourages you to continue. The category has only been around since last year.”
Lucie shares this award with her colleague and friend Victor Jacob. Extremely rare, they arrived ex-aequo, with the same number of votes.
“It’s important that a woman be rewardedshe insists. Before, there were about 4% of women conductors, 6 or 8% now. This is little. I hope it will inspire young women and create vocations, because it’s a wonderful jobwhich one can exercise whether one is a man or a woman.”
Winner of several international awards, Lucie Leguay pursues, in addition to her position as assistant conductor, a freelance career, which takes her around the world. She is therefore very rarely at home: “When I come back to Lille, I’m very happy, even for 24 hours. I find my family, friends and the Lille atmosphere that I love, but I am more often in hotels than in my apartment!”
Bright and smiling, she still found time to answer an interview, on the set of You are amazing.
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Lucie Leguay, revelation conductor at the Victories of Classical Music, on the set of “You are great” on March 23, 2023.
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©FTV
How do you see the role of a conductor?
He is the one who will federate the orchestra, around an interpretation. Imagine the score a bit like a chocolate cake recipe. Well, as a conductor, we have a reading of this score and we will communicate it to the musicians, then transmit the emotions to the public.
You need certain qualities, such as a good ear, because you have to hear everything that happens in an orchestra! I also have a certain joie de vivre, a lot of energy and I think I manage to train my orchestra to excel.
Is there a lot of work to get there?
Yes a lot. Before becoming a conductor, I was a pianist. I started with my father at the age of three, then I followed an education in flexible hours at the Carnot college in Lille, eight hours of piano every day.
It’s a bit like sport, it’s a full-time investment. During the holidays, we don’t go to have fun with our friends, we do internships or we work. So when it works, we are delighted!
Do you have any music preferences?
What I love about this job is being able to tackle an extremely wide repertoire. I do opera, contemporary, symphonic. I even did a tour with the DJ Wax Tailor ten years ago, a concert show between electro and symphonic music, Wax Tailor & the Phonovisions Symphonic Orchestra. I find that all the music is interesting and inspires me.
What I also like, thanks to this variety, are the meetings with the soloists, with the musicians. Every week, I have the chance to travel, to rub shoulders with artists. It is a pleasure to be enriched by all these encounters.
The music that I dream of conducting is that of Maurice Ravel. When we are invited, either we are offered an already established program, and we can sometimes choose the soloist (I have already chosen pianists for example), or we are told: ” What do you like to direct? ».
In fact, we invite a chef, he is there for a week and he must bring his knowledge. I love 20th century music, Ravel, Bartók, DebussyStravinskyimpressionist music.
What do you do before going on stage?
Sometimes I listen to something completely other than classical music. Just before, I always do a little dance in my dressing room, as if it were the last concert of my life and that I had to give all the energy possible.
I love the song of Beyoncé Single Ladies ; I often think of that song before going on stage. I even have a choreography (laughter), I’m getting dressed, combing my hair, taking the sheet music and I’m dancing.
When you have 1,200 people waiting behind, they don’t come for nothing, you have to give them energy! I danced a lot to this song, all over the world, it gives me the energy.
What are your projects ?
I would like to have my orchestra, in France or abroad. Why not Germany? I have a lot of affinities with this country. Being the musical director of an orchestra is not at all the same relationship as when you are a guest conductor and you have the orchestra for three or four days.
It’s a relationship that is created over the long term, we put our stamp on it, we have our own sound, like Alexandre Bloch at the Orchester National de Lille.
I would also love to do a CD again. It’s great, the recording, and we leave a trace. I have already recorded a disc with the ONL, Carnival of the Animals of Saint-SaensalongsideAlex Vizorek by reciting. It was pleasant, I felt like at home, with musicians that I know very well.
On May 13, 2023, Lucie Leguay will direct The planets of Gustav Holst to the Paris Philharmonic. A concert accompanied by signed photos Jeremy DeBacker, where she appears as an astronaut!
“Jérémy says rather “terronaut”, she specifies. We are on earth but it seems completely extraterrestrial. I traveled almost two years with him to take the photos all over the world, they will be projected at the same time as the music.”
The northerner also has projects in Japan and Los Angeles, but in this globe-trotting life, she hopes to find the time to recharge on the beach of La Panne in Belgium, his favorite place.
“It’s extraordinary to have, one hour from Lille, this parenthesis where the telephone and the computer no longer exist, where you can walk for hours. I’ve been going there since I was a baby, my grandmother used to take me there! There are waffles, fries, le cuistax and all that northern vibe that I love. I actually feel a bit Belgian!”