2015 is a fine year for Jean-Charles Gandrille. The Festival d'Auvers-sur-Oise has made him its guest composer. It must be said that he knows this town, so dear to the Impressionist painters, well: he is the organist at the Church of Notre Dame. The story of this violin concerto is an astonishing one: the first part, a poem for violin subtitled “Par-delà, vers l'azur...”, conceived in 2004, clearly looks toward the music and poetics of Henri Dutilleux. Gandrille met Dutilleux and showed him his score. Then Marcel Khalifé, the admirable oud player and Lebanese singer, a member of the artistic direction of the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, proposed performing the work in Doha in 2012. And so an astonishing musical adventure was successfully brought to fruition and recorded for the Paraty label.