CONCERT CREATION

RHODA SCOTT & SOPHIE-VÉRONIQUE CAUCHEFER-CHOPLIN
FEAT. RONALD BAKER
« SACRED JAZZ ! »

Unprecedented dialogue between two great organists

A summit meeting between two musicians who have been delighting audiences for decades. They both play the same instrument, namely the “organ”. The Hammond B3 for Rhoda Scott, a living legend of jazz, who played regularly at the Bilboquet since 1968, the mythical jazz club in the rue Saint-Benoît, and the great organ for Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin, titular of the great organ of Saint-Sulpice, one of the largest in Europe with five manuals and more than one hundred stops.

One might have thought that these two distinct worlds, between the largest church in Paris and a jazz club, had nothing in common, but that would be to misunderstand the history of our two long-time friends, their curiosity, and their respective admiration.
Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin, winner of the First Prize for Improvisation at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, loves to improvise, and Rhoda Scott, a pastor’s daughter from New Jersey, grew up in the warm atmosphere of African-American churches, accompanying gospel songs on the organ from the age of eight, and revealing an exceptional musical sensitivity.
A classical liturgical artist who improvises, a jazz artist who plays in churches, and here is the adventure launched, between gospels and improvisations, for this exceptional encounter, abolishing styles to concentrate on the essential: sharing, a common denominator between a church and a jazz club. All you had to do was cross the Boulevard Saint-Germain. And to make this meeting even more special, these two great ladies invited trumpeter Ronald Baker, also well known to jazz lovers, and a long-time friend of Rhoda Scott.

A concert created and presented exclusively for the festival, during which the playing of the two organists will be filmed and broadcast live on a giant screen in front of the audience. A unique evening that promises to be memorable.

Rhoda Scott: Hammond organ / Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin: great organ / Ronald Baker: trumpet