Tours (AFP)
From the markets of Venezuela to the Opéra de Tours: driven by her boundless energy, the young chef Glass Marcano has experienced a meteoric rise.
She became the first black woman to lead an orchestra in France on Saturday.
Hair pulled back, glasses on her nose, white sneakers and jogging gear, Glass Marcano sits on a high stool.
She does not hesitate to go down regularly to clarify her instructions, scores in hand.
The 24-year-old woman wields her wand with a wide gesture, never losing her broad smile.
“Play this passage like waves on the sea!” She says to a musician in a mixture of French and English.
At the end of the rehearsals, the Venezuelan looks up to the gilding and red velvets of the Italian theater in Tours.
"I'm living a daydream like in a movie," she savored.
"But, in this theater, I realize that it is indeed reality!"
His journey has indeed everything of a fairy tale ... at an accelerated tempo.
Having heard about the first edition of La Maestra, she did everything to participate in this international competition for conductors organized by the Philharmonie de Paris and the Paris Mozart Orchestra.
"I wanted to do this competition at all costs," she says.
"To pay the 150 euros registration fee, I sold fruit in the markets, at home, in the state of Yaracuy. This contest turned my life upside down in a few days."
Admittedly, the young woman did not win the first prize but she impressed Claire Gibault, the conductor of the Paris Mozart Orchestra.
"I discovered her on videos. I was immediately fascinated by her energy and her charisma," says the organizer of the competition.
The chef then undertakes to bring her young colleague to Paris last September, when the airspace of Venezuela is closed due to the health crisis.
The French embassy in Caracas struggles, offers him the visa and finds him a Spanish humanitarian flight, direction Madrid and Europe.
"It was the first time that she took the plane and that she left her country", recalls Claire Gibault.
"It's a beautiful modern fairy tale."
- "She is inspired, inhabited" -
His energy and his very intuitive way of directing, far from classical codes, also impressed the director of the Opéra de Tours.
So much so that Laurent Campellone decided to give him a baton.
"It marks a milestone in the history of Western music," he said.
“The fact that she is the first black woman to lead an orchestra is only anecdotal to the fact that she is a huge musician. We have three or four great conductors of this level per generation. Glass is one of them! "
And the members of the Orchester symphonique du Center-Val de Loire could see his charisma from the first rehearsals.
"The language barrier prevents her from going into technical details for the moment. But that does not pose any problem. She is very inspired, inhabited. She breathes the music", comments Audrey Rousseau, one of the two violins of the Tours opera house.
Now it remains to shape this raw talent.
Coming from the El Sistema teaching program, which offers an alternative method of learning music, alongside social integration for disadvantaged young people, Glass Marcano began playing the violin at the age of 8.
She then turned to law studies, while directing children's orchestras.
The young woman has just joined the regional conservatory of Paris in the improvement class.
While waiting to continue her ascent, she was able to conduct her first concert on Saturday in Tours.
On the program of the recording, the Violin Concerto in D major, op.
61 by Beethoven and the Symphony in C major by Georges Bizet.
Due to a lack of audience, the conductor conducted her orchestra with her back to the void, eager to meet the public, all over the world.
"I dream of conducting in Vienna, London, La Scala in Milan," she enthuses.
"But for that I know that you have to keep working, working over and over again."
© 2021 AFP