Post by davidhr on Sept 29, 2020 7:06:35 GMT -5
This past week brought forth several noteworthy events, one expected and one unexpected. We’ll start with the unexpected.
Lara announced that her new venture will be as director of the "Star Academie" to be shown on TVA in Quebec. She did this with several pictures on her FB (and Instagram) sites, at
www.facebook.com/larafabianofficial/photos/pcb.4480322182009244/4480322032009259
or
along with the following text [as you might expect, most of the announcements/articles in this Update are translated from the original French]: “What an honor to announce my participation in this great adventure that the TVA Star Academy promises to be ... which I join as Director! I am eager to discover the talents, to begin this knowledge sharing with them in order to forge strong and artistic ties together under the benevolent eyes of the public of Quebec! Joy, happiness, joy, happiness!”
We’ve known for months that ‘La Voix’ would not be on this coming year, having been replaced by the ‘Star Academie’ on TVA, and the obvious thought was that Lara would now be ‘out of work’ (for TVA, at least). "Comment stupide!" Lara simply jumped to the new program; and not simply as a coach, but as director!
For those of you who are not familiar with the show, here’s the description:
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There are many versions of the Star Academy or Operación Triunfo show [it having originated in Spain], each country having its own slight variations, but the basic concept remains the same: contestants live in a boarding-school called "The Academy", managed by a director, and various teachers coach them in several artistic disciplines. The participants are filmed with cameras throughout the day and night (an idea borrowed from another of Endemol's major reality shows Big Brother). Once a week, the contestants have to face a prime time show, where they sing the song they've prepared during the week before, as well as recapping their trials and tribulations at The Academy from the past week. The live show will often feature special guest stars, with whom some of the contestants have the opportunity to sing. Based on the judges' verdicts and viewer voting, the weakest contestant is dropped. The eventual winner is awarded a record deal and usually some amount of money.
This show is similar to the Idols franchise, but different in that it also shows the contestants' lives together in the "Academy" where they are trained.
This will be its first time in Canada since 2012; it has recently come back on the air in Spain as well. However, it has been phased out in favor of The Voice elsewhere (36 countries total tried it).
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As you can tell from the above, the show has generally fallen out of favor; why TVA has decided to bring it back is unclear. Perhaps they weren’t completely happy with the ratings for La Voix, or simply decided it was time for a change. Nevertheless, it gives Lara the chance to do something new, something which actually dovetails with what she has wanted to do with her ‘school’.
Lara will be overseeing both the students and the teachers. The people working with her are shown in the second of the two photographs she posted:
www.facebook.com/larafabianofficial/photos/pcb.4480322182009244/4480606971980765/
Lara and her staff are also introduced in the following video:
www.facebook.com/staracademietva/videos/610942786218579
The accompanying text reads: The director, her teachers and our facilitator have the success of future academicians at heart. They are already in work session. You can taste it!
Sign up for auditions now, it starts this weekend! You might attend their class at the Academie... www.staracademie.ca
📚🍎🎓
#NationStarAc
A number of articles are available discussing this happening, e.g., (https://showbizz.net/tele/star-academie-lara-fabian-nous-parle-de-son-role-de-directrice):
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Star Académie: Lara Fabian talks about her role as director
She favors a human and benevolent approach.
This Tuesday morning, during a live presentation on Facebook, we learned that none other than Lara Fabian had been chosen to become the director of the Academie.
We had the chance to talk to the new director, who first told us about her recruitment. “It was done very simply,” she says. “Jean-Philippe Dion had heard me say that I wanted to open a school and therefore he asked me what I thought of the role of director of the Academie. It must be said that I had a problem with the term "director". For me, a director is a form of authority, a hierarchy with which I have a lot of difficulty. And so, we tried for weeks to find another name, but finally, he said to me: “There, Lara, come back to it, it’s what you are going to do, direct a team.”
She advocates a human and charitable approach. “I'm going to be a mother, a big sister, I'm going to be a listener, a guide. I will be a resource of awakening potential, awakening human alignment. The most difficult journey to take when we are an artist is the journey towards ourselves. It is to find ourselves, to find ourselves as a being at the center of this choice of life. [...] My prerogative is to have my ears properly connected to my heart and to help them evolve."
The singer specifies that she will also prepare the academics to participate in the great Sunday shows. “My role will be to prepare people for what is complicated to deal with when you are on the edge of a cliff. A live show is that, it is being on the edge of a cliff and saying to yourself: “I bet that I can fly higher”. There will be the traditional debriefing after each Sunday show. “I will be listening a lot. I'm going to need them to give me their reading of the situation before I give them mine."
She also wishes to emphasize that she will also be present for the excluded, who will experience great disappointments. “I think that's the minimum. I couldn't see myself letting someone go without accompanying them humanely."
Although she will not live there, Lara Fabian says she will still be very present at the Academie. “I'm going to be there a lot, at least 3-4 days a week." Regarding the pandemic and the effects of it on production, Lara Fabian is content to say: I hope that by then, we will be far from this nightmare. We hope so with all our hearts!”
Star Académie will begin on February 14 on TVA. It will be a meeting not to be missed!
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Then there was this (https://www.24heures.ca/2020/09/22/star-academie-patrice-michaud-sera-lanimateur-des-galas-lara-fabian-sera-la-directrice):
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“Star academie”: Patrice Michaud will be the host of the galas, Lara Fabian the director
Patrice Michaud will be the host of Star Académie's 12 Sunday variety galas, when the popular show returns next February, on TVA.
Lara Fabian will be the director of the academy, while Ariane Moffatt becomes professor of creation, and Gregory Charles, professor of voice and music.
It had already been announced that international star Mika will be the artistic director and that he will put on spectacular acts with the young talents.
Anne Dorval, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the dancer Pepe Munoz, Celine Dion's faithful accomplice, will also be the masters of a new newly established “artistic identity” course.
All the details surrounding the show were announced on Star Académie's Facebook page on Tuesday morning.
Changes
Some changes will mark this sixth Quebec edition of the television contest. In particular, there will be 15 academicians who will participate in the reality TV show, whereas there were 14 in the past.
The endangerments leading to weekly eliminations, which once pitted girls against girls and boys against boys, will no longer be “gendered”, but rather mixed.
Candidates will also have “supervised” access to social networks, which will be integrated into their learning.
From the auditions, around a hundred of the most promising Star Académie aspirants will be invited to participate in an intensive preparation course for the first variety night, and will have the chance to store several professional tips and advice. This internship will be summarized in special programs presented in January on TVA.
What's more, Star Académie 2021's theme song will be an original composition by a local artist. In the past, we borrowed a mythical piece from the Quebec repertoire and brought it up to date.
The iconic bus in the Star Académie colors will hit the road on Friday for the auditions, which will be held in several places in Quebec and New Brunswick. More than 3000 people have already registered to participate in the competition.
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And several additional details are included here (https://www.archyde.com/big-unveiling-of-star-academie-details/):
Big unveiling of Star Académie details
More than 9 years after its very last edition, the cult show Star Académie is back in a completely redesigned format.
It is the singer-songwriter Patrice Michaud who will host reality TV and who will host the great Sunday varieties.
Mika, whose appointment has already been announced, will be the artistic director of the Academy for which he will pilot three varieties. Joining him will be Lara Fabian as director, Grégory Charles will be the voice teacher, and Ariane Moffatt will pilot the creation workshops.
For the very first time in the history of the show, whose first version dates from 2003, the theme song will be signed 100% by a Quebec artist.
In addition, the Academicians, who will be 15 instead of 14, will have supervised access to social networks; these will be part of the training. They will also have access to public comments, and will be able to see the impact of certain publications on the rest of their adventure.
To sign this new version, people from the industry, musicians and academics from the last two editions were met with in order to improve the experience, but also to bring it up to date.
The auditions will begin Friday in Montreal and will take place in several regions during the month of October. The production also added three more days of audition to unearth the rare pearl on November 5, 6 and 7 in Montreal.
To comply with Public Health rules related to the pandemic, you must reserve your time slot before going to the hearing. All details and conditions are available at www.staracademie.ca.
The “Star Académie” team launched on August 20 a rearranged and modernized version of the song “Et c’est pas finite” (which carried the very first edition of the competition, in 2003), with the voices of Roxane Bruneau , Émile Bilodeau, Sarahmée and Jérôme 50, among others.
The piece serves as a hymn to the auditions, but will not be the theme song of “Star Académie 2021”, for which we obviously maintain the suspense for the moment.
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All this fits in with Lara’s idea of her ‘school’, where she said she wanted to train people not only how to sing, but how to live and survive in the profession of entertainer/artist. She’s now in the position to do that with the ‘Academie’. And those lessons can also be broadcast to many other potential ‘students’. Seems like a perfect match!
Of course, as the first article notes, all this will be going on alongside the potential problems associated with the pandemic. How that will affect 15 young people plus the other professionals living in the ‘academy’ remains to be seen. Lara indicated she hoped it will all be past by then…that’s probably unlikely, but perhaps it will remain manageable. We’ll see!
Further discussion of this took place on Lara’s long interview on the ‘second episode’ of “La vie est belle”, located on various sites but in particular the link she provided on her FB site, on Spotify, at
open.spotify.com/episode/60ir7KzV9CmXE8uFm2VRx2?si=rrGxo-VwSZe-2DPEjNImbw&fbclid=IwAR3K6s-88-rzy57XFqSscUJsJDVa08H-RvYLAi8q4dSbtpAgeBo6H841vAY
The description of it reads, “Lara Fabian confides at François's microphone on her desire to become a real life coach, to open her school, her mother's illness, her father's love and how she does not want to spend her life in a plane . Meet a 50-year-old woman who just landed on her "X"”.
The fact that Lara has placed the video interview link on her FB site – something she almost never does anymore – indicates how important and high quality she believes it to be. She is quite right! Therefore, the following is an attempt to get across most of what was discussed. [Note the interview was 64 minutes long, and so the following is also quite long…].
**It took place right after the announcement of her as ‘director’.
**Lara noted she was not happy with the title as the ‘authority of the hierarchy” and she had to deal with being called that. The only way she could think of it was as being the leader of a team, because “you can’t lead in a void”. She likes that it’s a panel of multifaceted artists to whom she will be able to provide her greatest strength, her empathy.
**The host said he felt like Lara was like a helicopter that had finally arrived on its target (an “X”) after a long trip. Lara agreed.
**When asked what her motivation for achieving success was, Lara said it was not to see her name in lights – that’s a momentary trigger. Instead it is as a signal sent to those who made you what you are, that you exist in a place that they got you to. It’s not just your art or skill it’s an alignment of canvases of events where people say this song matches what is me, it’s then a snowball that creates this ascension and this name. A human being doesn’t exist if he can’t contribute this, can’t make sense in life. One must contribute to each other.
**The other motivation the host mentioned is that it is a return on investment. Lara joked that she wondered what was in the tank of her helicopter if it goes in that direction! It’s an element of her career that has often been noticed that she does not pay attention to, since it’s one of the things that is most easily stolen. It’s necessary to continue to put gas in the tank but the material aspect has never been important, so many beautiful experiences would have been missed. The host said one does these things because one wants to, not for the monetary reward. Lara said that she believes all circulates in life, that when you give without expecting something, inevitably it’s never in a vacuum, that you won’t understand until later when it comes back to you in another way, and sometimes 100x more powerful than what you have given.
**Lara said that discipline in singing – achieved by repetition – allows one to then be free and to fly. Attention must be paid on a composition space, on a creation space. Your voice is your art – it doesn’t matter if the result is not seen right away, at some point all of a sudden you’re at the edge of the cliff and you better know how to fly.
**The host mentioned Lara used to do lyrical songs, and Lara said yes, she liked it, she’s still doing it, it’s part of her vocal exercise though not on a daily basis. One takes a classical piece and works on vocal positioning. She doesn’t have the talent of a coloratura soprano, even if it’s in her range, she doesn’t practice it but it’s effective if you want. Like you practice classical dance when you do another form of dance, you go through the basic classic process which then allows you to develop your art for the category to which you do belong. So, yes, classical singing is something that she has done for a long time that she still does.
**When asked about Lara’s extrovert face, about how she arrives smiling, convinced that she can make temporary people hear her professional rather than private life, Lara said, she is pretty transparent, 80% is what she wants to project, but that like any human being, there are times when you are hit by humans so that you may not have joy all the time in this way of approaching. She’s a ‘clan girl’, she likes to relate to others, to tell what she feels, what she’s going through, what interests her, what intrigues her, that’s very present in her life to tell a big part of it.
**The host said that Lara’s such a good singer that people often forget she’s a singer/songwriter, composing and writing her songs – all three. What does she prefer, of these three? Lara said she doesn’t always prefer everything at the same time, there are times when she just prefers the voice because it becomes a bit like a mantra, like a meditation; there are times when she needs to put it on paper, or on a screen; there are times when she needs to just invent it through music. So these are three completely different communication methods. A melody is itself a way of communicating an emotion; putting words above is already a translation, a judgement, it’s an interface that is not as clear. Music is particularly free in the sense of error, it can just wander, like emotion, everywhere, the interface is not your intelligence, it is not a trail of intellectuals, just your inspiration. The writing is because she wants to tell it, tell what crossed her.
**The host asked, when Lara gives her shows, the people there live her songs, why is that? Lara said because what she touches as subject is so universal, it fits in the order of daily life, what she is going through each of us do as well.
**The host expressed the opinion that Lara seems to be a person who is comfortable conforming to the rules, she may want to change or modify them, but she works within structures – in contrast to people who don’t want to have anything to do with them. Lara responded that ‘conformism’ does not really characterize her. Lara said there is no rule that is ‘fit for all’, but a rule that takes into account the other and which allows the respect that facilitates the exchanges, which allows for sharing in a setting that does not offend, which does not act physically, which will not kill the integrity of others, yes, she is for that. But the rebel in her is that she will use rules differently, she will dress differently, so the message can be heard. The message is not the problem, it is the carrier, the frame so that a person doesn’t look legitimate and so that creates a cognitive dissonance in someone, i.e., you cannot speak to someone who doesn’t have the a priori feeling that you are legitimate, you have to find an avenue for that and that’s why she respects the rules. There is a form of conformity acquired in her.
**The host had said in opening that he had the feeling that she was on her “X” because she will do more and more in the coming months concerning the school she lived to do to coach the world, and it agrees with what she said in the last seconds - that with her personality and her motivations that it can’t go wrong simply because her motivations are good. Lara said, no, it can go wrong, it can always go wrong because she’s human, but as her intention is always driven by benevolence; sometimes what she says people will want to hear, and sometimes not, but as she redresses the words with respect, they may not believe in what she just said, but know she wouldn’t want to hurt anyone.
**The host asked, “So what makes the helicopter take off is altruism? (combined with daily forgetfulness, i.e., inertia)”. Lara said the gift of oneself is to recognize the unlimited human power, indeed one is unlimited as a human being when you are connected to this source, so giving yourself is never at a loss, it’s never to our detriment, it’s never one-sided.
**Aesthetics: the host said sometimes one likes to have beautiful things to come home to for the sake of appearances. Lara said she has no agent (or intention) for that at all. Instead, the interior is super important, being surrounded by beauty is essential for her. Host said so that means you are someone for whom aesthetics is the real thing inside, indicating someone who thrives to be well inside and wants others to rise to grow internally. Lara said yes she has an alarm clock for hours of interior light, she sees beauty in people where others don’t, beautiful souls. Physical beauty is just a lottery, we can just be in gratitude. There is a physical form of beauty, the distance between the eyes for example, but there is also Ladakhi subjectivity whose interface and emotion are what moves us, something that touches us, and that’s where we are all beautiful.
**The host said, “So if we are a friend of Lara Fabian we have the right of a nomadic life coach?” Lara said she works on the best possible personal growth and there’s a great responsibility that comes with being a coach of life or being a referent in personal growth. She is a student in personal growth for the moment, even if she already has a few small bags that she can move on to the next one. If you knew how she works on this, she has women who support her and offer her the luxury of these personal growth technologies. That plus her helper’s discipline gets her to where she can be devoted, and after that the only question is how long in her day does it take her to connect to herself, to be her, how long in her day she’s going to be devoted to choosing herself, and not at all in the egoistic nor egotistical sense.
**Host said that the trigger for this is that several times in the last few years she had to be on juries on shows where she had to get closer to young people (or not so young people) who wanted to sing, in the beginning she was a judge like the others, she was “for” or “against”. But she went from there to “I will help teach you”. Lara agreed, she said in the beginning she was uncertain, not really about her legitimacy but because she had never done the exercise to contribute what she was doing. For other sites there is no need for that. But she got support when the other coaches said that in her mistakes, on her journey, she made sense for them, and it was her need, her desire to feed herself with this knowledge that makes it legitimate. So yes there may have been a switch, and there was a moment when it was visible to all, when she took a leap of faith .
**The host asked what made her pack her bags and come to Canada? Lara said that like others she had a childhood dream, a caricature of what the Americas are for Europeans. Lara said that in a way she has her roots here (in Quebec); for example, a lot of people in Europe have difficulty understanding the accent, the idiomatic way of speaking, but she never had a problem understanding, it was already her language. The host said there is a connection anyway between Belgians and Quebeceers, and to that Lara said “definitely, a huge cousin, and a simplicity, a courtesy, a way of being more without ever claiming it”. She noted that the French are the greatest businessmen, the greatest entrepeneurs, but they will often tell you that most of the times they’ve been screwed in business it was with Belgians, as they make it seem like you will not be betrayed by them, so they got carried away, when one would have thought that they were not eloquent enough in their speeches. Belgians because of their simplicity, their courtesy, their cordiality, are more attractive people. The Quebecois, for her, are the real brothers of the Belgian in this sense.
**The host said we read biographies and we tend to romanticize them, and (referring to Lara) we see that a woman will arrive at the age of 20, release an album and it is an instantaneous success, that’s the impression one gets on Wikipedia. Lara said if only it was that easy but that it took nine years of intense work, at times she lived in bars if she sang in the bars, a long time. She always wrote her songs but in France they asked why since she sings so well; this occurs much less so in Quebec, she didn’t think she had to say it, she wrote with Rick then wrote with so many people in her life.
In France it was demanded that she fill in the boxes in showbusiness and align, the right tone, the right time, like other girls before her who had opened the doors and all of a sudden she was part of a pool of singers, singers of voice as they are called in Europe. In Quebec that name was really borrowed but that expression did not exist there 20 years ago. The host said it was the Vanessa Paradis years in France. Lara said in Quebec it was the singer that you were, you were Ginette, Celine or Julie Masse, they were singers who were loved by different kinds of audience, but no one was underqualified to the standards and challenges they were capable of doing. The host said that in Quebec we were doing a lot of lipsynch on TV so actually here we valued the voice and had the best microphones.
Lara said that it took her nine years to fill in and check all the boxes that were useful to be legitimate, loved, appreciated, understood. Then when the doors opened to success it became a kind of tidal wave for months. Nevertheless, even then, in June 97 one journalist said that she was like the Spanish flu, that even if you don’t want to catch her you, didn’t have a choice.
**The host said that previously there had been another tone of schooling, a child competition. Lara said yes, it’s true, the Eurovision contest, the radio hook that she won in Belgium, the international competition in Turkey (all these played a role).
**The host talked about the need for putting a pretty sunset or face on an album cover. Lara agreed but mentioned she once got criticized a lot for the album that she made called Le Secret where the cover was a Japanese calligraph set which indicated the whole of life is unity, is to be one thing, we are all this. So it’s a point with big big circles around that don’t end. She got criticized because while this is true, she did not understand, she didn’t want to face, that people saw it as a lack of humility, even though she was showing something so precious, why being united can save the world. The host said – we’re going to show it to a certain American president. [Lara laughed].
**The host said, you take off in Quebec and then you pack your backs and say “we’re going to attack the French market” where, he understood in hindsight, they immediately adopted hip hop. Lara said, no, there it was kind of a slam dunk, “we put everything on the radio, the song “Tout” and Universal did a pretty amazing job at the time, it really looked like a home run. I didn’t understand that it took so long and all of a sudden a TV was playing Jaques Martin [French TV producer] in this large amphitheater.” She remembered everything about this event, the public reaction, what she was wearing, what Jacques Martin said at the end, she remembered all. Afterward she could no longer walk in the street. The host noted that the French star system is like that, after a crazy evening the next day there are 13 million customers of advertisers fighting over you.
**The host noted that when she went to France she was a Belgian who arrives from Quebec of Italian origin. As one does find in Quebec Italian Belgians, she was “an Italian Belgian from Quebec”, even though at the start she was not really a Quebecois. Lara agreed, obviously she really was of Belgian origin, that’s for sure. The host repeated that after you arrived in France for many there you were a Quebecer. Lara again agreed, and said, yes, she claimed that a lot. **The host noted that to survive in Quebec you must adopt the accent. For him, the accent does not vary with what he eats or the week. Lara said that in France there is also the question of the musicality, for when she hears the music of French without the Quebec accent automatically she resumes this other accent because everyone has an accent there is no question. If she’s in Belgium and speaks with her friends she will have a very Belgian accent.
**Lara noted that she understands the need people have to out you in a box and with a label and categorize. She understands it’s reassuring, the human needs to know what to call you, so it’s not serious, but she also understood as she got older that she should no longer choose. That has been the greatest gift, the greatest revelation of this life, that she no longer has to say “but I am from Quebec but at the same time I am of origin Belgian but my mother is an Italian girl”. One day she understood that she is all at the same time, she is all of that, so a little of each, a lot of all is a happy mixture - which from time to time poses in particular forms when she lands somewhere.
**The host noted that four years after takeoff from Quebec, she was named revelation of the year in France, including the big take-off with Johnny. Lara said, yeah, it’s a little dizzy for the brain. What always saved her was her father, mother, best friend Nathalie, these people who leave calls for you only by your first name, then who tell you when you get off, who don’t tell you if it was good or not good, who just ask about you. Actually you don’t need to know if it was good from your end…you know if you have been disciplined enough to deliver this that you delivered but you never know how it is perceived. You know it was in a state of love, for it is the public that creates her. Lara said that the host indicated that there are two reasons when we come to drink [i.e., go into this field], it’s true, but in spite of that it’s a crazy game. She gave him an Italian metaphor, it’s like a mom who provides a meal every Sunday lunch in front of her family that unites them, she does not know if the meal of last week was maybe better, it’s ok always. That’s Lara’s nature.
**The host mentioned that he remembered about a year ago to the day they were in the studio theater of one of the radio stations to give a little show, with the door closed. Lara was in a small second floor room that must have been six feet by six feet…Lara talked about her father being there, and said she was lucky to have a dad who loves his girl, is happy that she’s safe there.
**The host noted that there were not many other girls who have sold 20 million albums who agree to meet in quasi one on one 50-75 fans, really good friends. Lara asked if her saw how intimidated she was. He asked what made you say yes to this? Lara responded it was “adrenaline”, which one will feel only in circumstances where there is such a risk. The host asked whether it was worse being in the Olympic stadium with 60,000 people, lights in front? Lara said that’s “less worse”. When she played the stadium with Johnny Hallyday with 80 thousand heads it was a “tight lawn”, (a well-organized event), there was some stress there but not like the inner tremor, the feverishness you feel in front of 60 people like in that studio (which is yours alone to handle).
**Lara continued talking about her father and what he said to her coming back from that event, noting that he loves people, and that he connected with individual people who were touched by her singing.
**Carrying on about her father, the Host remembered he was the trigger at the beginning who bought her a piano. Lara said not only the piano, but it was he who financed her first single, her first demos and first album, who has always been by her side, then who taught her joy in music, a daddy before being a trigger of her career. It was his nature in that he was the direct transmitter of that burst of joy that we feel when we sing, that we communicate by voice, by song, by writing. She remembered when she was very little her father taking his guitar, her mother sang so well and then everyone sang, there was no camera but there was the joy of sharing some music.
**The host then turned the conversation to her mother, noting her mom got sick. Lara said yes, a terrible disease which is a mixture between Alzheimer’s and Parkinsons’ coupled with hostile hallucinations, it’s called Lewy’s body dementia. It is a disease in which memory does not go away gradually, it goes away in spurts. So that means that sometimes you come back to yourself and you see your downfall. Lara called it most cruel. She said it’s like all neurodegenerative diseases, there is a place where the final fall begins, and the final decay kicks in, and here they no longer come back to clarity but she died very soon after and, yeah, it was hard because first of all people you don’t like to see the one that gave you life being completely destitute like that from suffering. She in effect lost her mother twice that’s really what happened. Talking about her mother Lara said Louisa was an extremely altruistic force of nature. One could perhaps not see the good nature of Louisa immediately but when she wanted to, it was a party, she had a big happy heart. Lara misses her very much, and wishes she could have lived to see her “find her X”. The host noted that old people have so much to give us, too bad we can’t transfer that part of their brain to us. Lara replied there is a saying that experience is a lantern that only illuminates the one who carries it.
**The host was aware that Lara too had health signals. Lara said she had lived through several chaotic episodes, quite serious anyway if she had lost her hearing permanently. In her life she broke two vertebrae and ended up in a wheel chair for almost four months when she could no longer carry her baby, lift her girl. She also experienced several times when she lost her voice, noting that that’s boring to the audience but it’s necessarily the thing that will affect her. Her losing hearing affected her much more than those times.
**The host was looking at Lara’s last few years – took 200 planes last year, had to be continually “on the carpet”. Lara said everything written about that is accurate, and it was amazing that he said that because she often says that there are those who wanted her success so much more than she did. Who wanted her to be “on the carpet” permanently for themselves, not for her. She noted that it’s not that she doesn’t want to meet the public, have a special bond with it, live this state of love that she lives with it, she does want that, but there are prices that at one point she was not ready to pay, and she paid the highest price (for her career) at times because that she didn’t want to pay that price.
** The host said that, going back to the profile, yes but she is going to do a world tour, going everywhere. Lara said it was funny because the promoters said, “what, only 12 days from home, no, how do you take a tour if you will not talk about more than twelve days. Then you want two weeks between.” Lara said 12 days without my daughter my husband but my friends also, never, she has not.
**Lara noted that when she is with a group of people (as on tour), more than 6 or 7, you can’t hear anybody else, you can no longer have a conversation, it doesn’t work. And that’s a shame because as she gets older she discovers people on tour whom she would like to get to know.
**The host suggested there are two ways to approach 50. There are people who act like she does - go on a world tour, it’s our business, have good genetics. Lara said was very lucky she finds 50 a soft landing, maybe because she’s never been afraid of aging, it’s our fears are the ones we see the most in our mirrors, so she never had to turn away from them. She had to go through two other fearful things in her life but not to grow old, because she saw the women in her family age with a lot of grace, grow old with a few wrinkles. She thought that you run sometimes a kilo more then from time to time, you will run on a treadmill, it was not serious it is what she said to herself. So when 50 years struck she approached it with so much lightness.
Lara said that on the other hand it’s not simply because one didn’t have fear, one can’t just sit on one’s laurels and then tell yourself that 50 years you’re not afraid of getting old - there’s a whole series of engine upgrades that you have to do. For example, she decided that she had to exercise, something that she had given up because of her life “in the swinging doors” and the great fatigue of her soul of her need to be successful. So when the lockdown struck in force, she was very tired. On that day, on March 12 she was going away, going to Odessa in Ukraine. She would have been confined for three months in Eastern countries. She knew her husband didn’t want her to go, but she had to go, people had bought tickets. He would tell her later that he prayed that something happens to make her not go. She was shocked. At the beginning of the confinement she thought it would be for a few weeks. She meant it when she said it was a badly wrapped gift, and that something in her replied thank you, though she does not know how long it will be like that.
**The host noted that 50 years is not such an enemy for him, that he takes it really well like all TV hosts due to the man in the make-up room; however it has changed the meaning of the word time. For example he now has to think what things will be like for him in 10 years, when he was 20 he didn’t worry about what it would be like when he was 50. Lara said that because it’s the rest of your life that you’re now having to make account of, it’s not something you will acquire but it should be treated as a gift, you must swim in gratitude at least once a day, you measure everything that has escaped you before and there you savor the thank you, savor everything, it is quite meaningful to be thankful. The host agreed.
**The host noted that Nathalie will soon turn 13. Lara said that her daughter dreams of turning 13 years old on November 20. The host said he feels like Lou has had an impact on Lara’s career as an author/composer because she’s a preteen and he was listening to Lara’s album Papillon, and found Lou’s presence there. Lara said, “Absolutely, also in the album ‘Ma vie dans la tienne’, the song Le Coeur qui tremble”. She said that Lou was the first arrival in the series of great happiness events, and that along with Gabriel Giorgio her husband, they are really the six hands of this X on which she did not impose herself. She said these are the beacons, also the ramparts, the lights. If she has to venture out, if she forgets something essential it is Lou who reminds her of it, she waits for the right moment with incredible sensitivity. Lara notes that she’s not objective but considers Lou a special child, a child her mother said when she was little that she was an old soul. In fact, Gabrielle was chosen by her daughter since she saw him first. Lara said she believed for a long time that one had no right to be happy professionally and at the same time personally. For 20 years she believed this…The day she no longer believed in it she entered the dimension where everything is accessible because we are an unlimited source of happiness if we choose to be ourselves perfectly.
**The host said to Lara that “you choose happiness by being the director of the Academy and that you explained you are going to work seven days a week but you see yourself in a summer camp as a happy instructor”. Lara responded yes, but she also really thinks of herself with those hours being spent with these beings there in a world that already belongs to us. The host then added you will have to take action to have the ‘Academy Lara Fabian’. Lara said that this is what she would have done if Jean-Philippe had not come to her, because it was her project, her life project to open a holistic school of song, of personal growth in music – which is what they will be teaching. That this is fin fact going to be kind of what they would be lucky enough to do already at the Academy; they will have the chance to do this at the Academy this year because the team around Jean Philippe and Jean Philippe himself have wished it to be much denser, nourishing, rich, wished that they turn to many other facets that had not been approached until then. Lara said she thinks that’s why they asked her to do it because they heard about her school idea. She continued, saying that having this desire to be listened to, to be in empathy, to receive the other is probably the sign of the Academy this year. “I was really happy to answer ‘present’ because I know that I can do it, I can do it”. Lara said the press and social media reactions had been very good, her agent told her. “There will be something for everyone, either Ariane, Gregory, Patricia, there will be for each the little happiness chests, you know what we need, what we must do.”
**The host then told Lara that Keith, behind the camera, had tattooed on the back on his ribs, one to the right one to the left, the following words:
On the right it was:
(from Tout)
Nous, on a joué le tout pour le tout, on s'est dit on s'en fout
On a l'univers rien qu'à nous, on a tout”
On the left:
(from Pas sans toi)
Sèche tes pleurs
Et refais-moi l'amour
Sèche tes pleurs
Me t’aime fort.
**Lara was overcome with that. She said “Wow, I need to take a drink.” The host said, “I told you that your words touch and join people”. Lara said, “One thing that is going to hit me in a very moving way is your telling me that, without my knowing it, without wanting it. You said in the preamble of what you just told me, you said we would like to leave a mark when we do this job. I have never been inhabited by what you said or aware of that in the essence but when you realize or you measure that, you maybe left one mark. To listen, to hear you confirm it to me that something bigger than me, represents me, you know what I say to myself, wow, we are part of a humanity or in this unit we have contributed a little to each other. I have not had the courage to tattoo anything on me because I am a sissy from this point of view but there are things that some people told me. It was on my heart and in my mind in my memory and so I know what that tells me - that it means to receive something that makes sense, so if I can be that from time to time it will have been worth it to be here, to have worked so much on this.”
**The host concluded, “I thank you infinitely, and I ask all my guests to end by saying the name of the show which is tattooed on my arm, which is “La vie est belle”. And Lara did.
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Another one of Lara’s great interviews. It does raise several questions. Lara had announced the opening of her school in Belgium in association with her singing teacher Pierre-Yves Duchesne. Is that still going ahead if the ‘Academy school’ is replacing the Montreal version? If so, will she have time to participate in it? Also, one wonders how much Lara is actually going to ‘teach’ if the other people are in charge of their sections; will she be satisfied to just be in a position of authority? Presumably both of these issues will be worked out; perhaps the first one already has (one imagines Lara contacted Pierre-Yves in conjunction with her taking this position).
In the other, now the expected news, Lara postponed the concerts in Montreal and Quebec, using her standard Instagram post to announce it:
As indicated, the shows were originally intended to be given last April. The poster doesn’t note that they were then moved to December, but the limitation on 250 people in a gathering would have made that financially unfeasible, especially with 10 times that amount of tickets sold for each of them. So now they are set for October 2021, with all tickets presumably being honored. Hopefully there will be no seating restrictions by then!
Interesting photo(s) of the week: from the Lara Fabian Netherlands FB site, as taken from the Canadian Star Academie TVA site:
www.facebook.com/LaraFabianTheNetherlands/photos/a.213355013543236/214707156741355
with the accompanying text from TVA:
--------------------------
“Lara Fabian is the queen. The queen of voices, the queen of performers, the queen of listening, kindness and humanity. We could not ask for better to accompany the Academicians in the great adventure of Star Académie.
[Lara says]: “The part of me that is going to lead, that is a director, is the part of me that knows that the real strength of a leader is a team and a family."
Today is the last day of auditions in Montreal. We're hitting the road for Rimouski next weekend to meet you. Lots of dates are still available. We really hope to hear from you.
Make an appointment at www.staracademie.ca
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Lara’s appearance as a guest on La Voix is still upcoming, but there is now no confusion about what she will be up to from now on through the winter season, with the Star Academy responsibilities. She says she will work on it 7 days/week (though only being at the Academie 3 or 4 days, leaving room for other projects). Lara started out this month by closing down all of the obligations she had previously – dropping out of “The Voice – la plus belle voix”, and cancelling her 50 World Tour concerts in France and the Ukraine. But she has now built those responsibilities back up, and for the new ones, she doesn’t have to travel internationally. That provides a better chance to keep her safe. Hope that’s true for all of you, too.
David
Lara announced that her new venture will be as director of the "Star Academie" to be shown on TVA in Quebec. She did this with several pictures on her FB (and Instagram) sites, at
www.facebook.com/larafabianofficial/photos/pcb.4480322182009244/4480322032009259
or
http://instagram.com/p/CFcWxYBBEIZ
along with the following text [as you might expect, most of the announcements/articles in this Update are translated from the original French]: “What an honor to announce my participation in this great adventure that the TVA Star Academy promises to be ... which I join as Director! I am eager to discover the talents, to begin this knowledge sharing with them in order to forge strong and artistic ties together under the benevolent eyes of the public of Quebec! Joy, happiness, joy, happiness!”
We’ve known for months that ‘La Voix’ would not be on this coming year, having been replaced by the ‘Star Academie’ on TVA, and the obvious thought was that Lara would now be ‘out of work’ (for TVA, at least). "Comment stupide!" Lara simply jumped to the new program; and not simply as a coach, but as director!
For those of you who are not familiar with the show, here’s the description:
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There are many versions of the Star Academy or Operación Triunfo show [it having originated in Spain], each country having its own slight variations, but the basic concept remains the same: contestants live in a boarding-school called "The Academy", managed by a director, and various teachers coach them in several artistic disciplines. The participants are filmed with cameras throughout the day and night (an idea borrowed from another of Endemol's major reality shows Big Brother). Once a week, the contestants have to face a prime time show, where they sing the song they've prepared during the week before, as well as recapping their trials and tribulations at The Academy from the past week. The live show will often feature special guest stars, with whom some of the contestants have the opportunity to sing. Based on the judges' verdicts and viewer voting, the weakest contestant is dropped. The eventual winner is awarded a record deal and usually some amount of money.
This show is similar to the Idols franchise, but different in that it also shows the contestants' lives together in the "Academy" where they are trained.
This will be its first time in Canada since 2012; it has recently come back on the air in Spain as well. However, it has been phased out in favor of The Voice elsewhere (36 countries total tried it).
------------------------------------------------------
As you can tell from the above, the show has generally fallen out of favor; why TVA has decided to bring it back is unclear. Perhaps they weren’t completely happy with the ratings for La Voix, or simply decided it was time for a change. Nevertheless, it gives Lara the chance to do something new, something which actually dovetails with what she has wanted to do with her ‘school’.
Lara will be overseeing both the students and the teachers. The people working with her are shown in the second of the two photographs she posted:
www.facebook.com/larafabianofficial/photos/pcb.4480322182009244/4480606971980765/
Lara and her staff are also introduced in the following video:
www.facebook.com/staracademietva/videos/610942786218579
The accompanying text reads: The director, her teachers and our facilitator have the success of future academicians at heart. They are already in work session. You can taste it!
Sign up for auditions now, it starts this weekend! You might attend their class at the Academie... www.staracademie.ca
📚🍎🎓
#NationStarAc
A number of articles are available discussing this happening, e.g., (https://showbizz.net/tele/star-academie-lara-fabian-nous-parle-de-son-role-de-directrice):
-------------------------------------
Star Académie: Lara Fabian talks about her role as director
She favors a human and benevolent approach.
This Tuesday morning, during a live presentation on Facebook, we learned that none other than Lara Fabian had been chosen to become the director of the Academie.
We had the chance to talk to the new director, who first told us about her recruitment. “It was done very simply,” she says. “Jean-Philippe Dion had heard me say that I wanted to open a school and therefore he asked me what I thought of the role of director of the Academie. It must be said that I had a problem with the term "director". For me, a director is a form of authority, a hierarchy with which I have a lot of difficulty. And so, we tried for weeks to find another name, but finally, he said to me: “There, Lara, come back to it, it’s what you are going to do, direct a team.”
She advocates a human and charitable approach. “I'm going to be a mother, a big sister, I'm going to be a listener, a guide. I will be a resource of awakening potential, awakening human alignment. The most difficult journey to take when we are an artist is the journey towards ourselves. It is to find ourselves, to find ourselves as a being at the center of this choice of life. [...] My prerogative is to have my ears properly connected to my heart and to help them evolve."
The singer specifies that she will also prepare the academics to participate in the great Sunday shows. “My role will be to prepare people for what is complicated to deal with when you are on the edge of a cliff. A live show is that, it is being on the edge of a cliff and saying to yourself: “I bet that I can fly higher”. There will be the traditional debriefing after each Sunday show. “I will be listening a lot. I'm going to need them to give me their reading of the situation before I give them mine."
She also wishes to emphasize that she will also be present for the excluded, who will experience great disappointments. “I think that's the minimum. I couldn't see myself letting someone go without accompanying them humanely."
Although she will not live there, Lara Fabian says she will still be very present at the Academie. “I'm going to be there a lot, at least 3-4 days a week." Regarding the pandemic and the effects of it on production, Lara Fabian is content to say: I hope that by then, we will be far from this nightmare. We hope so with all our hearts!”
Star Académie will begin on February 14 on TVA. It will be a meeting not to be missed!
-------------------------------------------------
Then there was this (https://www.24heures.ca/2020/09/22/star-academie-patrice-michaud-sera-lanimateur-des-galas-lara-fabian-sera-la-directrice):
------------------------------------------------
“Star academie”: Patrice Michaud will be the host of the galas, Lara Fabian the director
Patrice Michaud will be the host of Star Académie's 12 Sunday variety galas, when the popular show returns next February, on TVA.
Lara Fabian will be the director of the academy, while Ariane Moffatt becomes professor of creation, and Gregory Charles, professor of voice and music.
It had already been announced that international star Mika will be the artistic director and that he will put on spectacular acts with the young talents.
Anne Dorval, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the dancer Pepe Munoz, Celine Dion's faithful accomplice, will also be the masters of a new newly established “artistic identity” course.
All the details surrounding the show were announced on Star Académie's Facebook page on Tuesday morning.
Changes
Some changes will mark this sixth Quebec edition of the television contest. In particular, there will be 15 academicians who will participate in the reality TV show, whereas there were 14 in the past.
The endangerments leading to weekly eliminations, which once pitted girls against girls and boys against boys, will no longer be “gendered”, but rather mixed.
Candidates will also have “supervised” access to social networks, which will be integrated into their learning.
From the auditions, around a hundred of the most promising Star Académie aspirants will be invited to participate in an intensive preparation course for the first variety night, and will have the chance to store several professional tips and advice. This internship will be summarized in special programs presented in January on TVA.
What's more, Star Académie 2021's theme song will be an original composition by a local artist. In the past, we borrowed a mythical piece from the Quebec repertoire and brought it up to date.
The iconic bus in the Star Académie colors will hit the road on Friday for the auditions, which will be held in several places in Quebec and New Brunswick. More than 3000 people have already registered to participate in the competition.
---------------------------------------------
And several additional details are included here (https://www.archyde.com/big-unveiling-of-star-academie-details/):
Big unveiling of Star Académie details
More than 9 years after its very last edition, the cult show Star Académie is back in a completely redesigned format.
It is the singer-songwriter Patrice Michaud who will host reality TV and who will host the great Sunday varieties.
Mika, whose appointment has already been announced, will be the artistic director of the Academy for which he will pilot three varieties. Joining him will be Lara Fabian as director, Grégory Charles will be the voice teacher, and Ariane Moffatt will pilot the creation workshops.
For the very first time in the history of the show, whose first version dates from 2003, the theme song will be signed 100% by a Quebec artist.
In addition, the Academicians, who will be 15 instead of 14, will have supervised access to social networks; these will be part of the training. They will also have access to public comments, and will be able to see the impact of certain publications on the rest of their adventure.
To sign this new version, people from the industry, musicians and academics from the last two editions were met with in order to improve the experience, but also to bring it up to date.
The auditions will begin Friday in Montreal and will take place in several regions during the month of October. The production also added three more days of audition to unearth the rare pearl on November 5, 6 and 7 in Montreal.
To comply with Public Health rules related to the pandemic, you must reserve your time slot before going to the hearing. All details and conditions are available at www.staracademie.ca.
The “Star Académie” team launched on August 20 a rearranged and modernized version of the song “Et c’est pas finite” (which carried the very first edition of the competition, in 2003), with the voices of Roxane Bruneau , Émile Bilodeau, Sarahmée and Jérôme 50, among others.
The piece serves as a hymn to the auditions, but will not be the theme song of “Star Académie 2021”, for which we obviously maintain the suspense for the moment.
------------------------------------------------
All this fits in with Lara’s idea of her ‘school’, where she said she wanted to train people not only how to sing, but how to live and survive in the profession of entertainer/artist. She’s now in the position to do that with the ‘Academie’. And those lessons can also be broadcast to many other potential ‘students’. Seems like a perfect match!
Of course, as the first article notes, all this will be going on alongside the potential problems associated with the pandemic. How that will affect 15 young people plus the other professionals living in the ‘academy’ remains to be seen. Lara indicated she hoped it will all be past by then…that’s probably unlikely, but perhaps it will remain manageable. We’ll see!
Further discussion of this took place on Lara’s long interview on the ‘second episode’ of “La vie est belle”, located on various sites but in particular the link she provided on her FB site, on Spotify, at
open.spotify.com/episode/60ir7KzV9CmXE8uFm2VRx2?si=rrGxo-VwSZe-2DPEjNImbw&fbclid=IwAR3K6s-88-rzy57XFqSscUJsJDVa08H-RvYLAi8q4dSbtpAgeBo6H841vAY
The description of it reads, “Lara Fabian confides at François's microphone on her desire to become a real life coach, to open her school, her mother's illness, her father's love and how she does not want to spend her life in a plane . Meet a 50-year-old woman who just landed on her "X"”.
The fact that Lara has placed the video interview link on her FB site – something she almost never does anymore – indicates how important and high quality she believes it to be. She is quite right! Therefore, the following is an attempt to get across most of what was discussed. [Note the interview was 64 minutes long, and so the following is also quite long…].
**It took place right after the announcement of her as ‘director’.
**Lara noted she was not happy with the title as the ‘authority of the hierarchy” and she had to deal with being called that. The only way she could think of it was as being the leader of a team, because “you can’t lead in a void”. She likes that it’s a panel of multifaceted artists to whom she will be able to provide her greatest strength, her empathy.
**The host said he felt like Lara was like a helicopter that had finally arrived on its target (an “X”) after a long trip. Lara agreed.
**When asked what her motivation for achieving success was, Lara said it was not to see her name in lights – that’s a momentary trigger. Instead it is as a signal sent to those who made you what you are, that you exist in a place that they got you to. It’s not just your art or skill it’s an alignment of canvases of events where people say this song matches what is me, it’s then a snowball that creates this ascension and this name. A human being doesn’t exist if he can’t contribute this, can’t make sense in life. One must contribute to each other.
**The other motivation the host mentioned is that it is a return on investment. Lara joked that she wondered what was in the tank of her helicopter if it goes in that direction! It’s an element of her career that has often been noticed that she does not pay attention to, since it’s one of the things that is most easily stolen. It’s necessary to continue to put gas in the tank but the material aspect has never been important, so many beautiful experiences would have been missed. The host said one does these things because one wants to, not for the monetary reward. Lara said that she believes all circulates in life, that when you give without expecting something, inevitably it’s never in a vacuum, that you won’t understand until later when it comes back to you in another way, and sometimes 100x more powerful than what you have given.
**Lara said that discipline in singing – achieved by repetition – allows one to then be free and to fly. Attention must be paid on a composition space, on a creation space. Your voice is your art – it doesn’t matter if the result is not seen right away, at some point all of a sudden you’re at the edge of the cliff and you better know how to fly.
**The host mentioned Lara used to do lyrical songs, and Lara said yes, she liked it, she’s still doing it, it’s part of her vocal exercise though not on a daily basis. One takes a classical piece and works on vocal positioning. She doesn’t have the talent of a coloratura soprano, even if it’s in her range, she doesn’t practice it but it’s effective if you want. Like you practice classical dance when you do another form of dance, you go through the basic classic process which then allows you to develop your art for the category to which you do belong. So, yes, classical singing is something that she has done for a long time that she still does.
**When asked about Lara’s extrovert face, about how she arrives smiling, convinced that she can make temporary people hear her professional rather than private life, Lara said, she is pretty transparent, 80% is what she wants to project, but that like any human being, there are times when you are hit by humans so that you may not have joy all the time in this way of approaching. She’s a ‘clan girl’, she likes to relate to others, to tell what she feels, what she’s going through, what interests her, what intrigues her, that’s very present in her life to tell a big part of it.
**The host said that Lara’s such a good singer that people often forget she’s a singer/songwriter, composing and writing her songs – all three. What does she prefer, of these three? Lara said she doesn’t always prefer everything at the same time, there are times when she just prefers the voice because it becomes a bit like a mantra, like a meditation; there are times when she needs to put it on paper, or on a screen; there are times when she needs to just invent it through music. So these are three completely different communication methods. A melody is itself a way of communicating an emotion; putting words above is already a translation, a judgement, it’s an interface that is not as clear. Music is particularly free in the sense of error, it can just wander, like emotion, everywhere, the interface is not your intelligence, it is not a trail of intellectuals, just your inspiration. The writing is because she wants to tell it, tell what crossed her.
**The host asked, when Lara gives her shows, the people there live her songs, why is that? Lara said because what she touches as subject is so universal, it fits in the order of daily life, what she is going through each of us do as well.
**The host expressed the opinion that Lara seems to be a person who is comfortable conforming to the rules, she may want to change or modify them, but she works within structures – in contrast to people who don’t want to have anything to do with them. Lara responded that ‘conformism’ does not really characterize her. Lara said there is no rule that is ‘fit for all’, but a rule that takes into account the other and which allows the respect that facilitates the exchanges, which allows for sharing in a setting that does not offend, which does not act physically, which will not kill the integrity of others, yes, she is for that. But the rebel in her is that she will use rules differently, she will dress differently, so the message can be heard. The message is not the problem, it is the carrier, the frame so that a person doesn’t look legitimate and so that creates a cognitive dissonance in someone, i.e., you cannot speak to someone who doesn’t have the a priori feeling that you are legitimate, you have to find an avenue for that and that’s why she respects the rules. There is a form of conformity acquired in her.
**The host had said in opening that he had the feeling that she was on her “X” because she will do more and more in the coming months concerning the school she lived to do to coach the world, and it agrees with what she said in the last seconds - that with her personality and her motivations that it can’t go wrong simply because her motivations are good. Lara said, no, it can go wrong, it can always go wrong because she’s human, but as her intention is always driven by benevolence; sometimes what she says people will want to hear, and sometimes not, but as she redresses the words with respect, they may not believe in what she just said, but know she wouldn’t want to hurt anyone.
**The host asked, “So what makes the helicopter take off is altruism? (combined with daily forgetfulness, i.e., inertia)”. Lara said the gift of oneself is to recognize the unlimited human power, indeed one is unlimited as a human being when you are connected to this source, so giving yourself is never at a loss, it’s never to our detriment, it’s never one-sided.
**Aesthetics: the host said sometimes one likes to have beautiful things to come home to for the sake of appearances. Lara said she has no agent (or intention) for that at all. Instead, the interior is super important, being surrounded by beauty is essential for her. Host said so that means you are someone for whom aesthetics is the real thing inside, indicating someone who thrives to be well inside and wants others to rise to grow internally. Lara said yes she has an alarm clock for hours of interior light, she sees beauty in people where others don’t, beautiful souls. Physical beauty is just a lottery, we can just be in gratitude. There is a physical form of beauty, the distance between the eyes for example, but there is also Ladakhi subjectivity whose interface and emotion are what moves us, something that touches us, and that’s where we are all beautiful.
**The host said, “So if we are a friend of Lara Fabian we have the right of a nomadic life coach?” Lara said she works on the best possible personal growth and there’s a great responsibility that comes with being a coach of life or being a referent in personal growth. She is a student in personal growth for the moment, even if she already has a few small bags that she can move on to the next one. If you knew how she works on this, she has women who support her and offer her the luxury of these personal growth technologies. That plus her helper’s discipline gets her to where she can be devoted, and after that the only question is how long in her day does it take her to connect to herself, to be her, how long in her day she’s going to be devoted to choosing herself, and not at all in the egoistic nor egotistical sense.
**Host said that the trigger for this is that several times in the last few years she had to be on juries on shows where she had to get closer to young people (or not so young people) who wanted to sing, in the beginning she was a judge like the others, she was “for” or “against”. But she went from there to “I will help teach you”. Lara agreed, she said in the beginning she was uncertain, not really about her legitimacy but because she had never done the exercise to contribute what she was doing. For other sites there is no need for that. But she got support when the other coaches said that in her mistakes, on her journey, she made sense for them, and it was her need, her desire to feed herself with this knowledge that makes it legitimate. So yes there may have been a switch, and there was a moment when it was visible to all, when she took a leap of faith .
**The host asked what made her pack her bags and come to Canada? Lara said that like others she had a childhood dream, a caricature of what the Americas are for Europeans. Lara said that in a way she has her roots here (in Quebec); for example, a lot of people in Europe have difficulty understanding the accent, the idiomatic way of speaking, but she never had a problem understanding, it was already her language. The host said there is a connection anyway between Belgians and Quebeceers, and to that Lara said “definitely, a huge cousin, and a simplicity, a courtesy, a way of being more without ever claiming it”. She noted that the French are the greatest businessmen, the greatest entrepeneurs, but they will often tell you that most of the times they’ve been screwed in business it was with Belgians, as they make it seem like you will not be betrayed by them, so they got carried away, when one would have thought that they were not eloquent enough in their speeches. Belgians because of their simplicity, their courtesy, their cordiality, are more attractive people. The Quebecois, for her, are the real brothers of the Belgian in this sense.
**The host said we read biographies and we tend to romanticize them, and (referring to Lara) we see that a woman will arrive at the age of 20, release an album and it is an instantaneous success, that’s the impression one gets on Wikipedia. Lara said if only it was that easy but that it took nine years of intense work, at times she lived in bars if she sang in the bars, a long time. She always wrote her songs but in France they asked why since she sings so well; this occurs much less so in Quebec, she didn’t think she had to say it, she wrote with Rick then wrote with so many people in her life.
In France it was demanded that she fill in the boxes in showbusiness and align, the right tone, the right time, like other girls before her who had opened the doors and all of a sudden she was part of a pool of singers, singers of voice as they are called in Europe. In Quebec that name was really borrowed but that expression did not exist there 20 years ago. The host said it was the Vanessa Paradis years in France. Lara said in Quebec it was the singer that you were, you were Ginette, Celine or Julie Masse, they were singers who were loved by different kinds of audience, but no one was underqualified to the standards and challenges they were capable of doing. The host said that in Quebec we were doing a lot of lipsynch on TV so actually here we valued the voice and had the best microphones.
Lara said that it took her nine years to fill in and check all the boxes that were useful to be legitimate, loved, appreciated, understood. Then when the doors opened to success it became a kind of tidal wave for months. Nevertheless, even then, in June 97 one journalist said that she was like the Spanish flu, that even if you don’t want to catch her you, didn’t have a choice.
**The host said that previously there had been another tone of schooling, a child competition. Lara said yes, it’s true, the Eurovision contest, the radio hook that she won in Belgium, the international competition in Turkey (all these played a role).
**The host talked about the need for putting a pretty sunset or face on an album cover. Lara agreed but mentioned she once got criticized a lot for the album that she made called Le Secret where the cover was a Japanese calligraph set which indicated the whole of life is unity, is to be one thing, we are all this. So it’s a point with big big circles around that don’t end. She got criticized because while this is true, she did not understand, she didn’t want to face, that people saw it as a lack of humility, even though she was showing something so precious, why being united can save the world. The host said – we’re going to show it to a certain American president. [Lara laughed].
**The host said, you take off in Quebec and then you pack your backs and say “we’re going to attack the French market” where, he understood in hindsight, they immediately adopted hip hop. Lara said, no, there it was kind of a slam dunk, “we put everything on the radio, the song “Tout” and Universal did a pretty amazing job at the time, it really looked like a home run. I didn’t understand that it took so long and all of a sudden a TV was playing Jaques Martin [French TV producer] in this large amphitheater.” She remembered everything about this event, the public reaction, what she was wearing, what Jacques Martin said at the end, she remembered all. Afterward she could no longer walk in the street. The host noted that the French star system is like that, after a crazy evening the next day there are 13 million customers of advertisers fighting over you.
**The host noted that when she went to France she was a Belgian who arrives from Quebec of Italian origin. As one does find in Quebec Italian Belgians, she was “an Italian Belgian from Quebec”, even though at the start she was not really a Quebecois. Lara agreed, obviously she really was of Belgian origin, that’s for sure. The host repeated that after you arrived in France for many there you were a Quebecer. Lara again agreed, and said, yes, she claimed that a lot. **The host noted that to survive in Quebec you must adopt the accent. For him, the accent does not vary with what he eats or the week. Lara said that in France there is also the question of the musicality, for when she hears the music of French without the Quebec accent automatically she resumes this other accent because everyone has an accent there is no question. If she’s in Belgium and speaks with her friends she will have a very Belgian accent.
**Lara noted that she understands the need people have to out you in a box and with a label and categorize. She understands it’s reassuring, the human needs to know what to call you, so it’s not serious, but she also understood as she got older that she should no longer choose. That has been the greatest gift, the greatest revelation of this life, that she no longer has to say “but I am from Quebec but at the same time I am of origin Belgian but my mother is an Italian girl”. One day she understood that she is all at the same time, she is all of that, so a little of each, a lot of all is a happy mixture - which from time to time poses in particular forms when she lands somewhere.
**The host noted that four years after takeoff from Quebec, she was named revelation of the year in France, including the big take-off with Johnny. Lara said, yeah, it’s a little dizzy for the brain. What always saved her was her father, mother, best friend Nathalie, these people who leave calls for you only by your first name, then who tell you when you get off, who don’t tell you if it was good or not good, who just ask about you. Actually you don’t need to know if it was good from your end…you know if you have been disciplined enough to deliver this that you delivered but you never know how it is perceived. You know it was in a state of love, for it is the public that creates her. Lara said that the host indicated that there are two reasons when we come to drink [i.e., go into this field], it’s true, but in spite of that it’s a crazy game. She gave him an Italian metaphor, it’s like a mom who provides a meal every Sunday lunch in front of her family that unites them, she does not know if the meal of last week was maybe better, it’s ok always. That’s Lara’s nature.
**The host mentioned that he remembered about a year ago to the day they were in the studio theater of one of the radio stations to give a little show, with the door closed. Lara was in a small second floor room that must have been six feet by six feet…Lara talked about her father being there, and said she was lucky to have a dad who loves his girl, is happy that she’s safe there.
**The host noted that there were not many other girls who have sold 20 million albums who agree to meet in quasi one on one 50-75 fans, really good friends. Lara asked if her saw how intimidated she was. He asked what made you say yes to this? Lara responded it was “adrenaline”, which one will feel only in circumstances where there is such a risk. The host asked whether it was worse being in the Olympic stadium with 60,000 people, lights in front? Lara said that’s “less worse”. When she played the stadium with Johnny Hallyday with 80 thousand heads it was a “tight lawn”, (a well-organized event), there was some stress there but not like the inner tremor, the feverishness you feel in front of 60 people like in that studio (which is yours alone to handle).
**Lara continued talking about her father and what he said to her coming back from that event, noting that he loves people, and that he connected with individual people who were touched by her singing.
**Carrying on about her father, the Host remembered he was the trigger at the beginning who bought her a piano. Lara said not only the piano, but it was he who financed her first single, her first demos and first album, who has always been by her side, then who taught her joy in music, a daddy before being a trigger of her career. It was his nature in that he was the direct transmitter of that burst of joy that we feel when we sing, that we communicate by voice, by song, by writing. She remembered when she was very little her father taking his guitar, her mother sang so well and then everyone sang, there was no camera but there was the joy of sharing some music.
**The host then turned the conversation to her mother, noting her mom got sick. Lara said yes, a terrible disease which is a mixture between Alzheimer’s and Parkinsons’ coupled with hostile hallucinations, it’s called Lewy’s body dementia. It is a disease in which memory does not go away gradually, it goes away in spurts. So that means that sometimes you come back to yourself and you see your downfall. Lara called it most cruel. She said it’s like all neurodegenerative diseases, there is a place where the final fall begins, and the final decay kicks in, and here they no longer come back to clarity but she died very soon after and, yeah, it was hard because first of all people you don’t like to see the one that gave you life being completely destitute like that from suffering. She in effect lost her mother twice that’s really what happened. Talking about her mother Lara said Louisa was an extremely altruistic force of nature. One could perhaps not see the good nature of Louisa immediately but when she wanted to, it was a party, she had a big happy heart. Lara misses her very much, and wishes she could have lived to see her “find her X”. The host noted that old people have so much to give us, too bad we can’t transfer that part of their brain to us. Lara replied there is a saying that experience is a lantern that only illuminates the one who carries it.
**The host was aware that Lara too had health signals. Lara said she had lived through several chaotic episodes, quite serious anyway if she had lost her hearing permanently. In her life she broke two vertebrae and ended up in a wheel chair for almost four months when she could no longer carry her baby, lift her girl. She also experienced several times when she lost her voice, noting that that’s boring to the audience but it’s necessarily the thing that will affect her. Her losing hearing affected her much more than those times.
**The host was looking at Lara’s last few years – took 200 planes last year, had to be continually “on the carpet”. Lara said everything written about that is accurate, and it was amazing that he said that because she often says that there are those who wanted her success so much more than she did. Who wanted her to be “on the carpet” permanently for themselves, not for her. She noted that it’s not that she doesn’t want to meet the public, have a special bond with it, live this state of love that she lives with it, she does want that, but there are prices that at one point she was not ready to pay, and she paid the highest price (for her career) at times because that she didn’t want to pay that price.
** The host said that, going back to the profile, yes but she is going to do a world tour, going everywhere. Lara said it was funny because the promoters said, “what, only 12 days from home, no, how do you take a tour if you will not talk about more than twelve days. Then you want two weeks between.” Lara said 12 days without my daughter my husband but my friends also, never, she has not.
**Lara noted that when she is with a group of people (as on tour), more than 6 or 7, you can’t hear anybody else, you can no longer have a conversation, it doesn’t work. And that’s a shame because as she gets older she discovers people on tour whom she would like to get to know.
**The host suggested there are two ways to approach 50. There are people who act like she does - go on a world tour, it’s our business, have good genetics. Lara said was very lucky she finds 50 a soft landing, maybe because she’s never been afraid of aging, it’s our fears are the ones we see the most in our mirrors, so she never had to turn away from them. She had to go through two other fearful things in her life but not to grow old, because she saw the women in her family age with a lot of grace, grow old with a few wrinkles. She thought that you run sometimes a kilo more then from time to time, you will run on a treadmill, it was not serious it is what she said to herself. So when 50 years struck she approached it with so much lightness.
Lara said that on the other hand it’s not simply because one didn’t have fear, one can’t just sit on one’s laurels and then tell yourself that 50 years you’re not afraid of getting old - there’s a whole series of engine upgrades that you have to do. For example, she decided that she had to exercise, something that she had given up because of her life “in the swinging doors” and the great fatigue of her soul of her need to be successful. So when the lockdown struck in force, she was very tired. On that day, on March 12 she was going away, going to Odessa in Ukraine. She would have been confined for three months in Eastern countries. She knew her husband didn’t want her to go, but she had to go, people had bought tickets. He would tell her later that he prayed that something happens to make her not go. She was shocked. At the beginning of the confinement she thought it would be for a few weeks. She meant it when she said it was a badly wrapped gift, and that something in her replied thank you, though she does not know how long it will be like that.
**The host noted that 50 years is not such an enemy for him, that he takes it really well like all TV hosts due to the man in the make-up room; however it has changed the meaning of the word time. For example he now has to think what things will be like for him in 10 years, when he was 20 he didn’t worry about what it would be like when he was 50. Lara said that because it’s the rest of your life that you’re now having to make account of, it’s not something you will acquire but it should be treated as a gift, you must swim in gratitude at least once a day, you measure everything that has escaped you before and there you savor the thank you, savor everything, it is quite meaningful to be thankful. The host agreed.
**The host noted that Nathalie will soon turn 13. Lara said that her daughter dreams of turning 13 years old on November 20. The host said he feels like Lou has had an impact on Lara’s career as an author/composer because she’s a preteen and he was listening to Lara’s album Papillon, and found Lou’s presence there. Lara said, “Absolutely, also in the album ‘Ma vie dans la tienne’, the song Le Coeur qui tremble”. She said that Lou was the first arrival in the series of great happiness events, and that along with Gabriel Giorgio her husband, they are really the six hands of this X on which she did not impose herself. She said these are the beacons, also the ramparts, the lights. If she has to venture out, if she forgets something essential it is Lou who reminds her of it, she waits for the right moment with incredible sensitivity. Lara notes that she’s not objective but considers Lou a special child, a child her mother said when she was little that she was an old soul. In fact, Gabrielle was chosen by her daughter since she saw him first. Lara said she believed for a long time that one had no right to be happy professionally and at the same time personally. For 20 years she believed this…The day she no longer believed in it she entered the dimension where everything is accessible because we are an unlimited source of happiness if we choose to be ourselves perfectly.
**The host said to Lara that “you choose happiness by being the director of the Academy and that you explained you are going to work seven days a week but you see yourself in a summer camp as a happy instructor”. Lara responded yes, but she also really thinks of herself with those hours being spent with these beings there in a world that already belongs to us. The host then added you will have to take action to have the ‘Academy Lara Fabian’. Lara said that this is what she would have done if Jean-Philippe had not come to her, because it was her project, her life project to open a holistic school of song, of personal growth in music – which is what they will be teaching. That this is fin fact going to be kind of what they would be lucky enough to do already at the Academy; they will have the chance to do this at the Academy this year because the team around Jean Philippe and Jean Philippe himself have wished it to be much denser, nourishing, rich, wished that they turn to many other facets that had not been approached until then. Lara said she thinks that’s why they asked her to do it because they heard about her school idea. She continued, saying that having this desire to be listened to, to be in empathy, to receive the other is probably the sign of the Academy this year. “I was really happy to answer ‘present’ because I know that I can do it, I can do it”. Lara said the press and social media reactions had been very good, her agent told her. “There will be something for everyone, either Ariane, Gregory, Patricia, there will be for each the little happiness chests, you know what we need, what we must do.”
**The host then told Lara that Keith, behind the camera, had tattooed on the back on his ribs, one to the right one to the left, the following words:
On the right it was:
(from Tout)
Nous, on a joué le tout pour le tout, on s'est dit on s'en fout
On a l'univers rien qu'à nous, on a tout”
On the left:
(from Pas sans toi)
Sèche tes pleurs
Et refais-moi l'amour
Sèche tes pleurs
Me t’aime fort.
**Lara was overcome with that. She said “Wow, I need to take a drink.” The host said, “I told you that your words touch and join people”. Lara said, “One thing that is going to hit me in a very moving way is your telling me that, without my knowing it, without wanting it. You said in the preamble of what you just told me, you said we would like to leave a mark when we do this job. I have never been inhabited by what you said or aware of that in the essence but when you realize or you measure that, you maybe left one mark. To listen, to hear you confirm it to me that something bigger than me, represents me, you know what I say to myself, wow, we are part of a humanity or in this unit we have contributed a little to each other. I have not had the courage to tattoo anything on me because I am a sissy from this point of view but there are things that some people told me. It was on my heart and in my mind in my memory and so I know what that tells me - that it means to receive something that makes sense, so if I can be that from time to time it will have been worth it to be here, to have worked so much on this.”
**The host concluded, “I thank you infinitely, and I ask all my guests to end by saying the name of the show which is tattooed on my arm, which is “La vie est belle”. And Lara did.
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Another one of Lara’s great interviews. It does raise several questions. Lara had announced the opening of her school in Belgium in association with her singing teacher Pierre-Yves Duchesne. Is that still going ahead if the ‘Academy school’ is replacing the Montreal version? If so, will she have time to participate in it? Also, one wonders how much Lara is actually going to ‘teach’ if the other people are in charge of their sections; will she be satisfied to just be in a position of authority? Presumably both of these issues will be worked out; perhaps the first one already has (one imagines Lara contacted Pierre-Yves in conjunction with her taking this position).
In the other, now the expected news, Lara postponed the concerts in Montreal and Quebec, using her standard Instagram post to announce it:
http://instagram.com/p/CFhng2oi3sf
As indicated, the shows were originally intended to be given last April. The poster doesn’t note that they were then moved to December, but the limitation on 250 people in a gathering would have made that financially unfeasible, especially with 10 times that amount of tickets sold for each of them. So now they are set for October 2021, with all tickets presumably being honored. Hopefully there will be no seating restrictions by then!
Interesting photo(s) of the week: from the Lara Fabian Netherlands FB site, as taken from the Canadian Star Academie TVA site:
www.facebook.com/LaraFabianTheNetherlands/photos/a.213355013543236/214707156741355
with the accompanying text from TVA:
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“Lara Fabian is the queen. The queen of voices, the queen of performers, the queen of listening, kindness and humanity. We could not ask for better to accompany the Academicians in the great adventure of Star Académie.
[Lara says]: “The part of me that is going to lead, that is a director, is the part of me that knows that the real strength of a leader is a team and a family."
Today is the last day of auditions in Montreal. We're hitting the road for Rimouski next weekend to meet you. Lots of dates are still available. We really hope to hear from you.
Make an appointment at www.staracademie.ca
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Lara’s appearance as a guest on La Voix is still upcoming, but there is now no confusion about what she will be up to from now on through the winter season, with the Star Academy responsibilities. She says she will work on it 7 days/week (though only being at the Academie 3 or 4 days, leaving room for other projects). Lara started out this month by closing down all of the obligations she had previously – dropping out of “The Voice – la plus belle voix”, and cancelling her 50 World Tour concerts in France and the Ukraine. But she has now built those responsibilities back up, and for the new ones, she doesn’t have to travel internationally. That provides a better chance to keep her safe. Hope that’s true for all of you, too.
David
