Edith NICOL

On the Loire riverbanks, 18-year-old Edith Nicol took her first steps in the world of oriental traditions and music, during the festival “Les Orientales” of Saint-Florent-le-Vieil. Ever since, she explores that territory extensively, travelling from France to India, from Maghreb to Turkey, via Burma or Japan, seeking out new encounters and meaning, in relationship with her love for arts.

In 1999, she begins a Bachelor in philosophy, specializing in musicology, at Nantes University. Later on, in 2004, she continues with a Master degree in communication, specializing in cultural mediation and audiovisual. In 2006, she completes her studies with a Master 2 in cultural development and project management, at Lyon 2 University, in partnership with the ARSEC (former NACRe).

In the meantime, Edith does sensory research on traditional teaching of music in South India. In 2003-2004, the fruits of her research (transcriptions, recordings and other media) live on through artistic and educational projects. Several other stays in India follow that first experience, that eventually leads her from Tamil Nadu to Kashmir, from Rajasthan to Assam, and from 2010, mainly to Bengal.

There a path lies clearly before her eyes: she wishes to shoulder and support communities, the beholders of traditional artistic customs, from being impoverished by the global typhoon. Highlighting poets, musicians, dancers, acrobats or ritualistic performers, seems the right option to preserve the knowledge associated with their cultural identity –which are real metonymies of human diversity, its wide awareness and its limitless creativity. In turn festive or spiritual, these expressions depending on their environment and on the collective memories enhanced throughout the centuries contribute significantly to universal Imagination. To make them travel and to witness them simultaneously become the leitmotiv of her action.

Thus Edith begins her career in Paris, at the Guimet National Museum of Asian Arts’ auditorium in 2004-2005, then at the Cité de la musique in 2006-2007, before becoming the second-in-command of the artistic manager Alain Weber, between 2007 and 2011. She starts programming events for the Quai Branly Museum and the Salle Pleyel and takes part in major creations performed on various European stages. At the same time, she coordinates several festivals and events: Les Orientales, in France, but also in Portugal; the Tozeur Festival in Tunisia or the Fez Sacred Music Festival in Morocco. She also works in close relationship with Zaman Production, an agency which promotes artists that have been discovered abroad.

In 2011, wishing to experience another aspect of the job, she flies to Canada to work with the Ensemble Constantinople (Persian and baroque music). Throughout the year, she lives with the Iranian diaspora and takes care of various facets of the company’s organization: from artistic residencies to annual seasons and international tours, administration to representation.

A large panel of practical knowledge is required in each situation. Although Edith prefers creative research, writing and designing new projects, she is also very familiar with team management and above all with the multiple aspects of production and communication in the field of world music, and more largely, in the field of performance. Whether it be here or abroad, when it comes to music, she always has an ear to the ground, maintaining top-notch artistic expertise.

Today, mostly based in Paris, she offers her services to territorial authorities, festivals and institutions as a freelance consultant. As an artistic curator, she also organises musical Salons, restoring a feeling of closeness between the performer and listener.

Her trips abroad developed Edith’s inclination to practice "experimental ethnography". Immersed in the others routine, plunged into the poets’ and musicians’ every day life, she shares her experience through different media: written and sound diaries, public presentations and soon, documentary films. The artistic tours imagined during those journeys and staged upon return create a sense of cultural reciprocity. They attempt to establish an ethic of cooperation possibly leading to mutual acknowledgment.