Celebrate music festival tonight

THOUSANDS of free concerts will be taking place around France this evening to celebrate 30 years of the Fête de la Musique.

Venues from giant theatres to street corners and even the backs of vans are taken over for the major music festival, bringing amateur and professional musicians of all styles together.

It is the one night of the year when anyone can put on a performance - and the one night when noise regulations are largely ignored.

Street music is the basis of the festival but it also brings music into hospitals, prisons and rural communities and has seen the birth of many new musical trends across the years.

This year Quebec leads the celebrations at the Place de la Bastille in Paris with the cream of the young Canadian scene taking the stage.

Evry welcomes singer-songwriter Gaëtan Roussel while Neuilly has Carmen Maria Vega and Camélia Jordana.

Elsewhere, reggae band Sinsemilia will be at Firminy (Haute-Loire); rap-chanteuse Karimouche at Scène sur l'Eau at Mâcon (Saône-et-Loire) and Murray Head plays Music's House in Niort (Deux-Sèvres).

The full programme for tonight can be viewed on the Fête de la Musique website.

Photo: Pierre DORNIER - Fotolia.com