First Noel Coffret

Description

FIRST NOEL is an album of 25 great traditional Christmas songs and 3 new pieces that I composed to celebrate both my son’s very first Christmas and my grandmother Odette’s very last one last year.
The memories I have of Christmas are full of wonderful moments, and I wanted to record the album while staying true to the magic of those moments.
First, I surrounded myself with three great friends and loyal collaborators: François Delporte (guitar), Frank Woeste (piano), and Sofi Jeannin (choir director). Sofi selected 8 singers with angelic and sublime voices. We recorded in 2 magical places: the studio of my friend Armand Amar, where I had the chance to work on my first albums (Studios Babel in Montreuil) and the church of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. The latter, being the oldest church in Paris, just a few meters from Notre-Dame Cathedral, has always been the site of significant moments in my family's French history.
My father was a sacristan there in the 60s, and it was in the sacristy that he developed and built his path as a trumpeter. My aunt Hind, whom I adored and who was a pianist, as well as my grandmother Odette, were celebrated there during their funerals. It is also in this church that I got engaged and married... So many symbols.
After having recorded numerous albums, I felt it was time to capture my version of these great Christmas classics, giving them a less childish and more musical, more spiritual dimension, while preserving their necessary and subtle fragility as music for children or world-renowned classics.
FIRST NOEL is an album for all ages. I created it for my son Nael, who is only a few days old, and because this Christmas 2021 will be his very first, as well as for my grandmother Odette, who passed away this year at the age of 99, with whom we celebrated her last Christmas in 2020. A century separates them. A century of Christmases that traverse time, storms, wars, and cataclysms. But a century of magnificent and unforgettable melodies that have enriched our lives since our earliest age.
I wanted FIRST NOEL to not be "another" Christmas album, with crooners like Frank Sinatra and Hollywood arrangements. But a simple, humble album, instrumental in the truest sense, meaning without lyrics and where the melody returns to the center of listening. Soothing music that makes us dream, that unites us all, regardless of our mother tongue, our age, or our culture, and above all, regardless of our religion.
This is how Odette saw things, and this is also how I would like Nael and Lily, my children, to listen to the world.