The project
Since 2018, Orchestre Ostinato has demonstrated the benefits of musical practice for people experiencing poverty, isolation or profound vulnerability. Through its En musique pour plus d’humanité project, the orchestra transforms music into a space for encounter, attentive listening, trust and rebuilding.
Over the course of previous editions, Ostinato has worked in several detention centres across the Île-de-France region, as well as nursing homes, day centres and organisations supporting people experiencing homelessness or seeking refuge. Convinced of the positive impact of musical and artistic practice on isolated or vulnerable individuals, the orchestra is continuing its work in prisons in 2026, at Fleury-Mérogis Prison and La Santé Prison in Paris.
Conceived as a shared creative project, En musique pour plus d’humanité brings together incarcerated people and musicians through workshops, rehearsals and opportunities to present their work. Participants are encouraged to discover and express themselves, both individually and collectively, within a framework grounded in artistic excellence, active listening and trust. Music thus becomes a vehicle for dignity, cohesion and social connection.
In 2026, the project will include percussion and creative writing workshops at La Santé, as well as choral rehearsals at Fleury-Mérogis. These sessions give participants the opportunity to explore voice, rhythm, language and musical interpretation alongside musicians from Orchestre Ostinato.
December 2026: a concert within the prison at Fleury-Mérogis, bringing together incarcerated people and musicians around a programme of opera arias.
January 2027: a public presentation at the Panthéon, combining spoken performance, percussion and orchestra, as part of an off-site project developed with La Santé Prison.
Through its long-term support for En musique pour plus d’humanité, the Francis Kurkdjian Endowment Fund affirms the power of music as a means of fostering connection, self-confidence, dignity and social inclusion, bringing artistic practice into places of isolation.
Founded in 1997 under the patronage of Manuel Rosenthal, the Orchestre-Atelier Ostinato provides its 90 young instrumentalists with specific training in the profession of orchestral musician. As a "springboard orchestra", it is the only youth orchestra to pay its musicians, who are students of the best conservatories, thus placing them as close as possible to professional conditions and requirements and offering access to excellence.