Did you know a US musician inspired France’s Fête de la Musique?

It is France’s then-culture minister who is most commonly credited with coming up with the idea for what would become the country’s hugely popular Fête de la musique, which is held annually on June 21.

Since Jack Lang - who served under social president François Mitterrand (1981-1995) - helped launch the annual extravaganza in 1982 it has been exported to hundreds of other countries around the world.

Yet it was a US musician who inspired the idea.

Joel Cohen, a lute player who directed the Boston Camerata music ensemble from 1968 to 2008, was at the time an assistant to the director of the French music radio channel France Musique.

His boss, Louis Dandrel, had in 1976 been keen to find a way for the station to be viewed favourably after a major reform of the music it played had caused an uproar.

“Thanks to Alain Durel and Inge Thais, two friends, I had experienced some ‘music in the street’ in Toulouse and ‘music in the city’ in Aix-en-Provence,” Cohen told TV5 Monde in 2014.

“I said: ‘Let's do something on June 21, the longest day and December 21, the shortest day. It will be the Saturnalia. We open the antenna. We broadcast all night!’. Unheard of at the time. The antenna closed at midnight, like the buses!”

It was not until a few years later that the idea began to see the light of day.

After Mitterrand was elected as the Fifth Republic’s first socialist president in 1981, the government was looking for an event that would capitalise on voters’ hope for change.

“Maurice Fleuret, who was with us in 1976, had become Director of Music at the Ministry of Culture,” said Mr Cohen. “He took the project out of the boxes and it had the success that we know.”

Mr Lang eliminated December 21, considering that it was too complicated [to have both dates] and settled to only keep June 21.

It was renamed Fête de la musique and launched in 1982. Mr Lang went on TV and radio shows in a public relations push to highlight that it celebrated “all types of music”.

Read also: What is France’s Fête de la musique and what is going on near me?

An acute politician, Mr Lang took full credit for the idea, revealing he was only made aware of Mr Cohen’s creation during an interview he gave to Swiss television RTS in 2015.

Mr Cohen told TV5 Monde he had never been credited for coming up with the idea.

“But I want to avoid any bitterness. Politicians are a species apart. France gave me a lot of opportunities on a professional level: I performed here, I won the Grand prix du disque français and I was decorated twice by the French Republic. I can't say they left me in the gutter. That said, yes, I regret not having been thanked.”

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