For this interview we have been a couple of months ago in Avignon to meet the music Festival producer Pascal Pek and talk about his festivals and projects.
Hello Pascal, where do you come from ?
I come from Avignon.
Do you live in Avignon at the moment ?
I live between Avignon and a small city named Carpentras.
How old are you ?
I am 44.
And what are you doing in general ? Can you describe in what consist your activity with the Avignon festival for example ?
My job is to organise events, most of them are music festivals so I organise 7 festivals like the festival RESONANCE and you came in Avignon to see some of the great places where I have the chance to program artists : Le palais des pâpes, la collection Lambert etc. I also organise two festivals in Montpellier “Tohu Bohu” and “Others festivals” in Marseille or Uzès too. That’s my job to organise all those events.
And about the Avignon festival ? How do you make the line-up ?
So the idea in Avignon it’s to be connected with the place because what we want with RESONANCE festival is to mix historic places and current music, essentially electronic music. So the idea is to use electronic music and concerts to help young people to discover historical places.Thanks to RESONANCE there is a lot of young people from the south of France who came in Avignon and visit all the places, what I love is to mix everything not just the music but also the kind of dance or the location.
At that point what’s the best way for you to find artists ?
As I said before I organise events so I program many artists maybe a hundred per year or more, I just announced the line-up of KOLORZ for example where we will find « Peggy Gou » who we absolutely wanted to have this year, We also have « Octave one » one of the old producers from « Detroit ». That’s for KOLORZ who will happen from 19 to 20 July. For RESONANCE we are more concentrate about the link between places and music we try to find musical projects who fit with the places where they are scheduled.
Your goal is to put Avignon forward trough the festivals ?
Today if you want there is so much offer in festivals in France and South of France than we wanted to make the difference especially on the line-up because we see the same artists everywhere and our goal is to help discover new artists, for example in Montpellier with TOHU BOHU every year we have artists coming to play for the first time in Montpellier. This year we have a Tunisian artist « Deena Abdelwahed ».
At the moment what is really important to me too is to put forward the female dj and not just the big names who are famous, I try to move toward parity in the festivals.
And what’s your music of the moment or your discovery ?
In fact I want to say the last hit from « Peggy Gou » because my girlfriend listens to it daily and I love it too. Singing in Korean with her own style she brings something new to the electronic music.
