Post by davidhr on Dec 1, 2020 8:48:34 GMT -5
The big news this past week, and certainly one of the biggest items of the year, was Lara’s announcement of the release of her new album. On her FB site and in emails to the mailing list she had initiated just a few days before, she wrote the following, in both French and English:
-----------------------------
Hello everyone, I'm happy/so excited to FINALLY share this with you.
As the world entered into total immobilization and uncertainty last March, I felt the desire for introspection and to look for positive aspects we could draw from everything we lived...
So I explored new ways to write, sing and make music... I'm really proud to announce the release of a very special and limited edition release with unique musical experiences that I've baptized: ′′Lockdown Sessions ′′. Hope you all enjoy... Listen and fly freely to each of these musical experiences I propose...
This is a pretty special album for me that I dedicate to my fans, that I dedicate to you.
It will only be available exclusively on my online store, pre-orders are now available on my official website: www.larafabian.com
She accompanied that with a video, at
www.facebook.com/larafabianofficial/videos/1816088955232797
where she explained a bit further: “HI everyone, the Lockdown sessions are here. It’s a new way for me to envision music, a new way for me to write lyrics, especially a new way for me to address an emotion with my voice. Using my voice in a totally different way. I did this as the world entered a new era, as everything seemed to change, as we seemed to reach another level. I did this with no expectations, connected to this place inside of me where I needed to tell a story, a different one, in a different way. I hope you’ll plunge into this, and I hope for that little hour of music we can be connected to the same space. Be safe, and enjoy. Bye.
And also…
“I would say it’s an album, but actually, yes, it’s an album, but it’s not like the ones I’ve recorded before. There are no songs written in the usual way. I used my voice more as an instrument, my lyrics are more like mantras, and my music is more experience than creation. I have no expectations, I just wanted to give it [the album] to you. It is the fruit of what happened in me as we entered this new era. When humanity was isolated in their homes. This is a series of interconnected emotions that I created with my family and Moh Denebi. I hope the album will resonate with you in one way or another. Again, I have no expectations, only a desire to share what is happening [handles to heart] inside. I hug you. "
And at the (newly consecrated) larafabian.com URL, there is this:
--------------------------------------
LARA FABIAN UNVEILS AN EXCLUSIVE AND LIMITED EDITION IMAGINED DURING THESE MONTHS OF CONTAINMENT: "LOCKDOWN SESSIONS"
As Humanity entered an era never known before, that it was immobilized, weakened by the uncertainties and the consequences of a pandemic, Lara Fabian carried out a humble and meditative introspection of the moment that our Humanity lived and still lives. A positive prism in which to find refuge, which she baptized: "Lockdown Sessions". This creation was for Lara Fabian the opportunity to explore and discover a new way of writing, singing and making music.
Without sinking into despair, Lara remained silent, contemplative and meditated deep within herself to create these never-before-seen musical EXPERIENCES. She wanted to offer an ode to the freedoms of the soul when our individual freedoms are contained… an opportunity to find oneself, through music, in harmony with our Being.
Each melody is an experience to be explored and appreciated intimately, for oneself. Listening to "Lockdown Sessions" is taking part in the musical creation of an artist who wished to deliver through the most intrinsic essence of her Art, just by voice and sound, her way of having experienced the immobilization of our art world and how to overcome our doubts.
This brand new “out of category” album is available exclusively to fans through the LaraFabian.com store.
All CDs and vinyls will be autographed by Lara.
Don't miss this opportunity! The quantity is extremely limited. Pre-order now.
---------------------------------------------------
It is available as a CD ($11.99, USD), digital ($9.99) and LP ($26.99). The CD and digital releases are scheduled to become available on 12/16, while the LP will arrive in early 2021.
A discussion of this release can be found at (https://mradio.fr/news/musique/43119/lara-fabian-annonce-un-album-different?fbclid=IwAR3eDCwKTTMuDjGzhgtDFesTNnNdkLqgx2PL9xgEHiPg56Zbs7w9g1BYr5k); here’s the translation:
-----------------------------------------
Lara Fabian announces a "different" album ...
The singer wants to offer her audience a new "experience"!
In a video posted on Instagram Lara Fabian announced to her audience that she is preparing a new album. And if the news should delight fans of the singer of "Je t’aime", they may nevertheless be surprised ... Entitled "Lockdown sessions", this opus will be a kind of "laboratory" for the singer, a way to explore new horizons.
One thing is certain this disc will be very different from its previous ones as she confides it at the beginning of the extract: "It is not an album like the ones I used to make until then in my career". To make her point more clear, the one who recently revealed her complexes, tells the genesis of this new project: "These are not songs written in the traditional way. I used my voice more like an instrument. My texts more oriented like mantras and music I imagined it, visualized more as an experience than a creation.”
A dive into what the 50-year-old artist has been most intimate with: her impressions and feelings. Developed during confinement, this album is very personal: "It is the result of what happened in me when we entered this new era. When humanity saw itself confined", she relates. "It is a series of interrelated emotions that I created with my family.”
And if Lara Fabian was able to give free rein to her creativity by creating this opus, she is aware that it risks destabilizing her audience: "I just wanted to deliver it to you [...], there is no expectation", she specifies. The one who accepted to be the director of Star Académie québécoise assures us that this record is the fruit of her "desire to share". A touching statement!
------------------------------------------
And if all goes well, it should be available for Christmas
.
As Lara said here and elsewhere, these songs are more ‘mantra-like’. Nevertheless, the tracklist has real names:
1. Listen to the silence
2. I remember
3. Song for a child
4. Le passage
5. Dance under the rain
6. Reinvention
7. Fenomenology
8. Feminicide
9. Live your life
10. Dichotomie
11. Introspection
12. One
Since many of these are English titles, one wonders whether whatever words are being sung will also be in English…
As a side effect, now that Lara has regained control of the larafabian.com URL, she can use it for other things, and she has on it her prospective 2021 concerts in the ‘countries to the east’ as well as Canada. Most of those also include links for tickets (though the Montreal and Odessa shows seem to be sold out).
She also has included the Papillon (s) re-edition, with links to places for purchase or listening. [Now, if she would only include her complete discography…].
While the Star Academie had no new items to report in Quebec, it is getting some play in France, as shown in the following article (https://www.lavoixdunord.fr/900682/article/2020-11-30/lara-fabian-mika-xavier-dolan-la-star-academy-revient-au-quebec-avec-des-profs?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=echobox_lavdn&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3vq5BS1OissGMgPDQxbBsGIFbcvaCop_-9-p4TGYmTU1eBPw5sFP4qiO4#Echobox=1606750653):
------------------------------------------------
Lara Fabian, Mika, Xavier Dolan… The “Star Academy” returns to Quebec with prestigious teachers
From February 2021, the “Star Académie” will return to Quebec. On this occasion, prestigious and renowned professors were recruited.
The “Star Academy” will celebrate its twentieth anniversary in 2021, and to celebrate that, the show that revealed Jenifer is preparing its return for next year, as the Parisian revealed last May.
In the meantime, it is in Quebec that the program, spelled "Star Académie", will be reborn from its ashes … with a prestigious teaching team, noted our colleagues from Le Soir . And for good reason, the TVA channel, which will broadcast the reality show, has just announced the last professor. It will be none other than the Quebec director Xavier Dolan , who will be in charge of “artistic identity”.
He joined other well-known and reputable teachers, including Lara Fabian. The former coach of “The Voice" France has been appointed director of the Academy, and the Lebanese-British singer Mika will be in charge of artistic direction. Other celebrities, including Pepe Muñoz, Celine Dion's dancer, singers Patrice Michaud and Ariane Moffatt or musician Gregory Charles (who will be the voice and music teacher), have joined the cast of the teaching team.
A manor house of almost 1580 m²
In a video, posted on Twitter, Lara Fabian presents the place of life of the “Academicians”. In Quebec, no castle, but a manor located in Waterloo, built in 1865, "probably one of the most extraordinary residences in the Eastern Townships", estimates the director of the place. And the candidates will have room: the place, called the Maplewood Manor, is 17,000 square feet, or 1,579 m² and has more than ten rooms. This is "the biggest academy in Star Academie history", says Lara Fabian.
The hearings of 5,500 potential candidates, in 7 cities, ended a few days ago. The “Star Académie” will make its comeback on Sunday February 14, 2021, specifies the Quebec Huffington Post . The show was stopped in 2012 and had so far only experienced five seasons, in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2009 and 2012, specifies Le Soir .
-------------------------------------
Interestingly, the Star Academy is making a comeback in France as well, first as an ‘anniversary’ show, and then perhaps at some point a new edition. The article referred to, from Le Parisian (https://www.leparisien.fr/culture-loisirs/tv/la-star-academy-prepare-son-retour-pour-2021-01-05-2020-8309427.php) states:
----------------------------------
Star Academy ("Star Ac") prepares its return for 2021
While the replay of the first reality shows on YouTube enchants nostalgic people, projects are being set up to revive the competition which revealed Jenifer, Grégory Lemarchal, Nolwenn Leroy ...
By Marie Poussel
May 1, 2020 at 8:57 p.m. , modified May 2, 2020 at 07h45
"The music uuuh, ouiiiii, the musiceeeuuh. You know it will be the key to love, to friendship… Who hasn't surprised themselves singing the heady anthem of “Star Ac”, cover of “La Musique” by Nicoletta? The cult TV show of TF1, a musical reality TV show that introduced Jenifer, Grégory Lemarchal, Nolwenn Leroy, Olivia Ruiz and Elodie Fregé, entered the history of French television in the 2000s before slowly dying in the general indifference in 2013 on NRJ12.
In this period of confinement, its reruns on YouTube, 19 years later, delight the nostalgic. Since April 21, the production company Endemol Shine has been broadcasting a new episode every day. What, to give ideas ... and prepare a possible follow-up? "We are working on various programs around a new generation Star Ac," announces Vincent Panozzo, director of programs and creation and development of the Endemol Shine group, who himself was a young press officer of the competition at the time. "Next year is the 20th anniversary, it can be celebrated. I am sure that one day the show will come back, because it works in cycles. There would always be this learning side (Editor's note: the students lived together and took music, dance, theater lessons…) and also great bonuses with lives."
Most of the people who worked on the competition still hang out. "We often call each other with all the teams, there is something that links us to this period, with Alexia Laroche-Joubert, Nathalie André (Editor's note: the two directors of the " castle " where the candidates slept) ... and Nicolas Missoffe , who was an intern at Star Ac, is now responsible for music programs at Endemol Shine now”, laughs Vincent Panozzo.
Nikos Aliagas took his first steps as an animator there
Among the gang, in 2001, a young journalist then tried his hand at animation: Nikos Aliagas . “We were all sorcerer's apprentices who learned on the job", remembers the presenter of “The Voice”. "It was a laboratory. During the first numbers, it didn't work, then everything accelerated in the fourth prime. On the day of the final, the streets of Paris were empty. We had a good time."
“At the time I was a journalist, reporter but a blue as a host. Not very well known, he says. Etienne Mougeotte (Editor's note: vice-president of the TF1 group and antenna director of the French channel TF1 from 1987 to 2007) offered me this program when I came to talk about a program in the second part of the evening. I had no style in the presentation but I found my way in this human bond with the students, which we still find in my shows today. We didn't know it was going to last that long, but we were all in the same boat ”.
Will he be there to celebrate the 20th anniversary? “Sentimentally yes, that would make me happy! It would be great a special show with friends in a nostalgic spirit, it would have fun seeing the old candidates and the whole team again. There are incredible journeys to tell. And I keep an infinite tenderness for the Star Ac because it is the most beautiful of schools."
------------------------------------
Maybe they will see how the Quebec version works, and if successful, fashion something after that. As they said, these shows work in cycles.
It’s also attracted attention in Belgium, e.g., from CINE Tele revue (https://www.cinetelerevue.be/actus/lincroyable-casting-de-la-star-academy-quebecoise?fbclid=IwAR0csQJBQyZkYexmn283kfcjVTjaReS_oWwz60FPofSaGBxt9Qe2JmUs4Qw):
-------------------------------------------------
The incredible cast of Quebec's "Star Académy"
Lara Fabian director, Mika and Xavier Dolan teachers… What a beautiful world! Even Pepe Munoz will be there ...
If some here still dream of a resurrection of the "Star Academy", in Quebec this wish is about to materialize with the return of the "Star Académie" (yes, with "ie", the name having been Frenchized down there). The legendary show will be back in 2021 on the channels of the TVA. And to attract the public, the production puts on the heavy side of celebrities. Starting with the director, who will be none other than our national Lara Fabian. After having been a coach in "The Voice" (Canadian and French version), here she is at the head of the most emblematic reality show of this century.
But the interpreter of "Je t’aime" is not the only name known to integrate the Quebec version of the "Star Academy". Director Xavier Dolan will be the show's artistic identity teacher, while the faculty will include Mika as artistic director, as well as Pepe Munoz (yes, Celine Dion's dancer), singer Ariane Moffatt, and actress Anne Dorval!
As for the place that will welcome the students, no castle, but rather a mansion, that of Maplewood, located in… Waterloo. Not in Belgium, of course, but in Quebec, an hour's drive from Montreal. Hopefully for the candidates it won't be plain dull. In any case, we let you discover the places, with Lara Fabian as a guide… whose Quebecois accent we will appreciate! [and they then show the video we have seen of the outside of the mansion].
--------------------------------------------------------------
Bottom line: it seems that the quality that is being prepared for this show in Quebec is raising eyebrows in Europe – a very positive development for what the show may end up bringing to its audience.
In other news, Lara resumed her ‘personal touch’ interaction with fans by posting the following video on her Instagram site,
along with the caption, “100% Quebecois breakfast, this morning, I honor these wonderful women who make products here for the people of here, products that do good ... orange canebege kombucha and gluten-free chocolate muffin 🍫 yum and thank you @ senchakombucha
And speaking of pictures, the interesting photo(s) of the week: without any comparison, it is the cover of Lara’s new album, shown on her Instagram site,
While Lara looks beautiful, some people complained that the cover picture was put together in a very amateurish way. And that feeling was noted in the press – here, for example, from (https://www.public.fr/News/Lara-Fabian-se-fait-lyncher-sur-Instagram-Decouvrez-pourquoi-1660209):
--------------------------------
… Lara, very active on Instagram, she shares with her community her daily life but also her new projects. The latest? The exclusive and limited edition of a new album imagined during confinement, which she also called Lockdown Sessions. But on the photo of her album, Internet users are crying scandal! Indeed, Lara would have photoshopped an old photo of herself for the cover of this new album. In comments we can read: "STOP with this amateur visual… please !!!!", "but what is this cover ?!" or "it's just so badly done I don't understand, a selfie would have been almost better."
----------------------------------
To the extent this is true, let’s hope it doesn’t carry over to the album itself.
It will be interesting to see if Lara starts publicizing this album release. Albums that she considers ‘specialty’ (like “All the Women in Me”) have never gotten publicized previously. Outside of that, her time will likely be taken up with affairs associated with the Star Academie. Stay safe everybody!
David
-----------------------------
Hello everyone, I'm happy/so excited to FINALLY share this with you.
As the world entered into total immobilization and uncertainty last March, I felt the desire for introspection and to look for positive aspects we could draw from everything we lived...
So I explored new ways to write, sing and make music... I'm really proud to announce the release of a very special and limited edition release with unique musical experiences that I've baptized: ′′Lockdown Sessions ′′. Hope you all enjoy... Listen and fly freely to each of these musical experiences I propose...
This is a pretty special album for me that I dedicate to my fans, that I dedicate to you.
It will only be available exclusively on my online store, pre-orders are now available on my official website: www.larafabian.com
She accompanied that with a video, at
www.facebook.com/larafabianofficial/videos/1816088955232797
where she explained a bit further: “HI everyone, the Lockdown sessions are here. It’s a new way for me to envision music, a new way for me to write lyrics, especially a new way for me to address an emotion with my voice. Using my voice in a totally different way. I did this as the world entered a new era, as everything seemed to change, as we seemed to reach another level. I did this with no expectations, connected to this place inside of me where I needed to tell a story, a different one, in a different way. I hope you’ll plunge into this, and I hope for that little hour of music we can be connected to the same space. Be safe, and enjoy. Bye.
And also…
“I would say it’s an album, but actually, yes, it’s an album, but it’s not like the ones I’ve recorded before. There are no songs written in the usual way. I used my voice more as an instrument, my lyrics are more like mantras, and my music is more experience than creation. I have no expectations, I just wanted to give it [the album] to you. It is the fruit of what happened in me as we entered this new era. When humanity was isolated in their homes. This is a series of interconnected emotions that I created with my family and Moh Denebi. I hope the album will resonate with you in one way or another. Again, I have no expectations, only a desire to share what is happening [handles to heart] inside. I hug you. "
And at the (newly consecrated) larafabian.com URL, there is this:
--------------------------------------
LARA FABIAN UNVEILS AN EXCLUSIVE AND LIMITED EDITION IMAGINED DURING THESE MONTHS OF CONTAINMENT: "LOCKDOWN SESSIONS"
As Humanity entered an era never known before, that it was immobilized, weakened by the uncertainties and the consequences of a pandemic, Lara Fabian carried out a humble and meditative introspection of the moment that our Humanity lived and still lives. A positive prism in which to find refuge, which she baptized: "Lockdown Sessions". This creation was for Lara Fabian the opportunity to explore and discover a new way of writing, singing and making music.
Without sinking into despair, Lara remained silent, contemplative and meditated deep within herself to create these never-before-seen musical EXPERIENCES. She wanted to offer an ode to the freedoms of the soul when our individual freedoms are contained… an opportunity to find oneself, through music, in harmony with our Being.
Each melody is an experience to be explored and appreciated intimately, for oneself. Listening to "Lockdown Sessions" is taking part in the musical creation of an artist who wished to deliver through the most intrinsic essence of her Art, just by voice and sound, her way of having experienced the immobilization of our art world and how to overcome our doubts.
This brand new “out of category” album is available exclusively to fans through the LaraFabian.com store.
All CDs and vinyls will be autographed by Lara.
Don't miss this opportunity! The quantity is extremely limited. Pre-order now.
---------------------------------------------------
It is available as a CD ($11.99, USD), digital ($9.99) and LP ($26.99). The CD and digital releases are scheduled to become available on 12/16, while the LP will arrive in early 2021.
A discussion of this release can be found at (https://mradio.fr/news/musique/43119/lara-fabian-annonce-un-album-different?fbclid=IwAR3eDCwKTTMuDjGzhgtDFesTNnNdkLqgx2PL9xgEHiPg56Zbs7w9g1BYr5k); here’s the translation:
-----------------------------------------
Lara Fabian announces a "different" album ...
The singer wants to offer her audience a new "experience"!
In a video posted on Instagram Lara Fabian announced to her audience that she is preparing a new album. And if the news should delight fans of the singer of "Je t’aime", they may nevertheless be surprised ... Entitled "Lockdown sessions", this opus will be a kind of "laboratory" for the singer, a way to explore new horizons.
One thing is certain this disc will be very different from its previous ones as she confides it at the beginning of the extract: "It is not an album like the ones I used to make until then in my career". To make her point more clear, the one who recently revealed her complexes, tells the genesis of this new project: "These are not songs written in the traditional way. I used my voice more like an instrument. My texts more oriented like mantras and music I imagined it, visualized more as an experience than a creation.”
A dive into what the 50-year-old artist has been most intimate with: her impressions and feelings. Developed during confinement, this album is very personal: "It is the result of what happened in me when we entered this new era. When humanity saw itself confined", she relates. "It is a series of interrelated emotions that I created with my family.”
And if Lara Fabian was able to give free rein to her creativity by creating this opus, she is aware that it risks destabilizing her audience: "I just wanted to deliver it to you [...], there is no expectation", she specifies. The one who accepted to be the director of Star Académie québécoise assures us that this record is the fruit of her "desire to share". A touching statement!
------------------------------------------
And if all goes well, it should be available for Christmas
. As Lara said here and elsewhere, these songs are more ‘mantra-like’. Nevertheless, the tracklist has real names:
1. Listen to the silence
2. I remember
3. Song for a child
4. Le passage
5. Dance under the rain
6. Reinvention
7. Fenomenology
8. Feminicide
9. Live your life
10. Dichotomie
11. Introspection
12. One
Since many of these are English titles, one wonders whether whatever words are being sung will also be in English…
As a side effect, now that Lara has regained control of the larafabian.com URL, she can use it for other things, and she has on it her prospective 2021 concerts in the ‘countries to the east’ as well as Canada. Most of those also include links for tickets (though the Montreal and Odessa shows seem to be sold out).
She also has included the Papillon (s) re-edition, with links to places for purchase or listening. [Now, if she would only include her complete discography…].
While the Star Academie had no new items to report in Quebec, it is getting some play in France, as shown in the following article (https://www.lavoixdunord.fr/900682/article/2020-11-30/lara-fabian-mika-xavier-dolan-la-star-academy-revient-au-quebec-avec-des-profs?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=echobox_lavdn&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3vq5BS1OissGMgPDQxbBsGIFbcvaCop_-9-p4TGYmTU1eBPw5sFP4qiO4#Echobox=1606750653):
------------------------------------------------
Lara Fabian, Mika, Xavier Dolan… The “Star Academy” returns to Quebec with prestigious teachers
From February 2021, the “Star Académie” will return to Quebec. On this occasion, prestigious and renowned professors were recruited.
The “Star Academy” will celebrate its twentieth anniversary in 2021, and to celebrate that, the show that revealed Jenifer is preparing its return for next year, as the Parisian revealed last May.
In the meantime, it is in Quebec that the program, spelled "Star Académie", will be reborn from its ashes … with a prestigious teaching team, noted our colleagues from Le Soir . And for good reason, the TVA channel, which will broadcast the reality show, has just announced the last professor. It will be none other than the Quebec director Xavier Dolan , who will be in charge of “artistic identity”.
He joined other well-known and reputable teachers, including Lara Fabian. The former coach of “The Voice" France has been appointed director of the Academy, and the Lebanese-British singer Mika will be in charge of artistic direction. Other celebrities, including Pepe Muñoz, Celine Dion's dancer, singers Patrice Michaud and Ariane Moffatt or musician Gregory Charles (who will be the voice and music teacher), have joined the cast of the teaching team.
A manor house of almost 1580 m²
In a video, posted on Twitter, Lara Fabian presents the place of life of the “Academicians”. In Quebec, no castle, but a manor located in Waterloo, built in 1865, "probably one of the most extraordinary residences in the Eastern Townships", estimates the director of the place. And the candidates will have room: the place, called the Maplewood Manor, is 17,000 square feet, or 1,579 m² and has more than ten rooms. This is "the biggest academy in Star Academie history", says Lara Fabian.
The hearings of 5,500 potential candidates, in 7 cities, ended a few days ago. The “Star Académie” will make its comeback on Sunday February 14, 2021, specifies the Quebec Huffington Post . The show was stopped in 2012 and had so far only experienced five seasons, in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2009 and 2012, specifies Le Soir .
-------------------------------------
Interestingly, the Star Academy is making a comeback in France as well, first as an ‘anniversary’ show, and then perhaps at some point a new edition. The article referred to, from Le Parisian (https://www.leparisien.fr/culture-loisirs/tv/la-star-academy-prepare-son-retour-pour-2021-01-05-2020-8309427.php) states:
----------------------------------
Star Academy ("Star Ac") prepares its return for 2021
While the replay of the first reality shows on YouTube enchants nostalgic people, projects are being set up to revive the competition which revealed Jenifer, Grégory Lemarchal, Nolwenn Leroy ...
By Marie Poussel
May 1, 2020 at 8:57 p.m. , modified May 2, 2020 at 07h45
"The music uuuh, ouiiiii, the musiceeeuuh. You know it will be the key to love, to friendship… Who hasn't surprised themselves singing the heady anthem of “Star Ac”, cover of “La Musique” by Nicoletta? The cult TV show of TF1, a musical reality TV show that introduced Jenifer, Grégory Lemarchal, Nolwenn Leroy, Olivia Ruiz and Elodie Fregé, entered the history of French television in the 2000s before slowly dying in the general indifference in 2013 on NRJ12.
In this period of confinement, its reruns on YouTube, 19 years later, delight the nostalgic. Since April 21, the production company Endemol Shine has been broadcasting a new episode every day. What, to give ideas ... and prepare a possible follow-up? "We are working on various programs around a new generation Star Ac," announces Vincent Panozzo, director of programs and creation and development of the Endemol Shine group, who himself was a young press officer of the competition at the time. "Next year is the 20th anniversary, it can be celebrated. I am sure that one day the show will come back, because it works in cycles. There would always be this learning side (Editor's note: the students lived together and took music, dance, theater lessons…) and also great bonuses with lives."
Most of the people who worked on the competition still hang out. "We often call each other with all the teams, there is something that links us to this period, with Alexia Laroche-Joubert, Nathalie André (Editor's note: the two directors of the " castle " where the candidates slept) ... and Nicolas Missoffe , who was an intern at Star Ac, is now responsible for music programs at Endemol Shine now”, laughs Vincent Panozzo.
Nikos Aliagas took his first steps as an animator there
Among the gang, in 2001, a young journalist then tried his hand at animation: Nikos Aliagas . “We were all sorcerer's apprentices who learned on the job", remembers the presenter of “The Voice”. "It was a laboratory. During the first numbers, it didn't work, then everything accelerated in the fourth prime. On the day of the final, the streets of Paris were empty. We had a good time."
“At the time I was a journalist, reporter but a blue as a host. Not very well known, he says. Etienne Mougeotte (Editor's note: vice-president of the TF1 group and antenna director of the French channel TF1 from 1987 to 2007) offered me this program when I came to talk about a program in the second part of the evening. I had no style in the presentation but I found my way in this human bond with the students, which we still find in my shows today. We didn't know it was going to last that long, but we were all in the same boat ”.
Will he be there to celebrate the 20th anniversary? “Sentimentally yes, that would make me happy! It would be great a special show with friends in a nostalgic spirit, it would have fun seeing the old candidates and the whole team again. There are incredible journeys to tell. And I keep an infinite tenderness for the Star Ac because it is the most beautiful of schools."
------------------------------------
Maybe they will see how the Quebec version works, and if successful, fashion something after that. As they said, these shows work in cycles.
It’s also attracted attention in Belgium, e.g., from CINE Tele revue (https://www.cinetelerevue.be/actus/lincroyable-casting-de-la-star-academy-quebecoise?fbclid=IwAR0csQJBQyZkYexmn283kfcjVTjaReS_oWwz60FPofSaGBxt9Qe2JmUs4Qw):
-------------------------------------------------
The incredible cast of Quebec's "Star Académy"
Lara Fabian director, Mika and Xavier Dolan teachers… What a beautiful world! Even Pepe Munoz will be there ...
If some here still dream of a resurrection of the "Star Academy", in Quebec this wish is about to materialize with the return of the "Star Académie" (yes, with "ie", the name having been Frenchized down there). The legendary show will be back in 2021 on the channels of the TVA. And to attract the public, the production puts on the heavy side of celebrities. Starting with the director, who will be none other than our national Lara Fabian. After having been a coach in "The Voice" (Canadian and French version), here she is at the head of the most emblematic reality show of this century.
But the interpreter of "Je t’aime" is not the only name known to integrate the Quebec version of the "Star Academy". Director Xavier Dolan will be the show's artistic identity teacher, while the faculty will include Mika as artistic director, as well as Pepe Munoz (yes, Celine Dion's dancer), singer Ariane Moffatt, and actress Anne Dorval!
As for the place that will welcome the students, no castle, but rather a mansion, that of Maplewood, located in… Waterloo. Not in Belgium, of course, but in Quebec, an hour's drive from Montreal. Hopefully for the candidates it won't be plain dull. In any case, we let you discover the places, with Lara Fabian as a guide… whose Quebecois accent we will appreciate! [and they then show the video we have seen of the outside of the mansion].
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Bottom line: it seems that the quality that is being prepared for this show in Quebec is raising eyebrows in Europe – a very positive development for what the show may end up bringing to its audience.
In other news, Lara resumed her ‘personal touch’ interaction with fans by posting the following video on her Instagram site,
http://instagram.com/p/CINnjfQh6p1
along with the caption, “100% Quebecois breakfast, this morning, I honor these wonderful women who make products here for the people of here, products that do good ... orange canebege kombucha and gluten-free chocolate muffin 🍫 yum and thank you @ senchakombucha
And speaking of pictures, the interesting photo(s) of the week: without any comparison, it is the cover of Lara’s new album, shown on her Instagram site,
http://instagram.com/p/CIA01KMhYMr
While Lara looks beautiful, some people complained that the cover picture was put together in a very amateurish way. And that feeling was noted in the press – here, for example, from (https://www.public.fr/News/Lara-Fabian-se-fait-lyncher-sur-Instagram-Decouvrez-pourquoi-1660209):
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… Lara, very active on Instagram, she shares with her community her daily life but also her new projects. The latest? The exclusive and limited edition of a new album imagined during confinement, which she also called Lockdown Sessions. But on the photo of her album, Internet users are crying scandal! Indeed, Lara would have photoshopped an old photo of herself for the cover of this new album. In comments we can read: "STOP with this amateur visual… please !!!!", "but what is this cover ?!" or "it's just so badly done I don't understand, a selfie would have been almost better."
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To the extent this is true, let’s hope it doesn’t carry over to the album itself.
It will be interesting to see if Lara starts publicizing this album release. Albums that she considers ‘specialty’ (like “All the Women in Me”) have never gotten publicized previously. Outside of that, her time will likely be taken up with affairs associated with the Star Academie. Stay safe everybody!
David
