One Note Europe

One Note Europe has just launched its first project: the 2010 Documentary-Tour.

Its purpose is to get a taste of the diverse social situation of European musicians and music professionals in a 26’ documentary movie to be released in the beginning of year 2011.

To achieve this, our crew of young European musicians will undertake a three-month and 7 000 km tour across Europe to exchange with Europeans about and with music. Our musicians will perform as an improv'band in the 17 visited cities, but will also organize encounters and artistic collaborations with European musicians to get an impression of both their day-to-day and musical life. The tour highlights will be presented through the lense of a professional video crew..

While music overcomes cultural, social and language barriers, by gathering spectators and artists sharing the same passion, it is also a very diverse reality, for both artists and their audience, sometimes generating tensions and even dissensions. ONE 2010 project's vision is to help people understand this multi-faceted reality.

Indeed, if music overcomes cultural, social and language barriers, and gathers spectators and artists sharing the same passion, it is however in Europe a very diverse and unbalanced reality, for both artists and their audience. The musicians’ social role and recognition broadly differ depending on their notoriety, origins and influences.

One Note Europe 2010 project's vision is to help people understand this multi-faceted and mostly tough reality.

Brussels - 15th to 19th May

Brussels, Europe's capital and the first stage of our reporting-tour: there is already so much to talk about! First of all there was music, music in the streets, in the Halles Saint Gery during gay pride, on the Place Jourdan among the Maison Antoine's clients, or in this typical bar , in which Walloons and Flemish people mix happily. Then there were meetings, artistic, associative or individual meetings: our hosts have welcomed us incredibly warmly; we got to spend some time at the International Musical Youth organization; students helped us, who turned out to be marvellous press-agents planning our interventions on air on Radio Alma and Radio ULB , and amazing interpreters and diplomats negotiating - in Rumanian - a right-of-way on local musicians' patch (Place Luxembourg)!As far our documentary project, we got to interview Nicolas Hauzer in the Parc Royal. For those who don't know him: Nicolas Hauzer is a Belgian violonist and a traditional balkanik music specialist who went all over East Europe since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

Lille - 19th to 24 May

“Au Nord c’était les corons, la terre c’était le charbon...”( Pierre Bachelet ). Well, not only! After five days spent in Lille, we have to admit that this town is explosive. And there's nothing to do with firedamp; musicians, singers, artists and students are setting the streets on fire. We have stayed at local students and have really enjoyed the warmhearted and welcoming atmosphere of the town, was it in Lille's well-to-be center, on the Grande Place, in Solferino's student district or in the middle of the typical and endearing Wazemmes. We have lived five wild days of busking sessions and parties suggested by our local friends, dealing with our daily work - sorting and selecting photos and videos from Brussels - and rehearsing for the concert we gave last Saturday at the Monde Moderne bar which is also an art-gallery. This concert gave us the chance to test out our ability to perform in a bar in Lille, in which you get a free beer for every song you play- good enough we hadn't too many songs to play! Before we left, we interviewed the C.U.L -Collectif des Ukuleles Lillois- a local band that plays French songs with Ukuleles, and which energy, cheerfulness and enthusiasm really match with this city we loved.

London - 24th to 31st May

If singing in the rain was a pleasure for Gene Kelly it was not the case for us! As we were busking under the rain at the Millenium bridge, we figured out how intense, interesting but also tough our stage in London was! Exploring the musical universe of such a big city with so many opportunities of great interviews or gigs is not a piece of cake for small teams like ours! Based for the first days in a flat share near Brixton, the Jamaican neighborhood, we achieved to top up the number of gathered nationalities to seven, including an indian-born documentary film maker, Michael Watt, who directed the famous Greenpeace vs Nestlé buzz video ! Thanks to him we met David Caneva , a charismatic Colombian artist and social worker who masters filmmaking, singing and guitar playing as well as his funky traditional gaita flute. We jammed together through Brixton fish market! At Ronnie Scotts’s, we interviewed 50 year experience drummer Calvin Welch and the day after went to Highbury to Interview Strange Fruit , an energic blues-rock oriented Londoner rock band, then headed on to the concert of Hindi Zahra for an interview (finally cancelled due to sickness)...No time to rest! The last weekend we moved to Willesden Green in another international flat share, did some backup work, rehearsed in a garden, performed for our hosts’ party, made a gig at the Green Room Bistro, and ran into the Eurostar to reach the continent to be on the road again…

Amsterdam - 31st May to 6th June

After having once again masterfully tetrissed an unknown number of bags, crates and even a drumset into Suzie (our Kangoo car), we arrived in Amsterdam where we settled at Amsterdam's College before to start pushing our musical route a step further. One night saw us stumbling upon OT 301 , one of those epic relicts of Amsterdam’s squad marked sixties, a very Berlinish place whose owners’ livingroom is interwoven in a mysterious and yet progressive way with a dancefloor, vegetable plantation and art gallery all at once. Our jam was well received, although the longed for drum and bass session in the DJ’s livingroom had to be cancelled due to an alarming lack of space cookies in his kitchen. After a highly enlighting interview with Yaniv Nachum , director of the Amsterdam Jazz Orchestra, busking some tunes at Leidseplein and rehearsing in Vondelpark in the heart of the city gave us two gigs at Dan Murphy’s Irish pub, which was just made for getting an international scene involved. It was then time to get goozed into Karel Bredenhorsts „The GoOzer“s wicked electric cello world and we hope to meet him again when he will be tripping himself. The cherry on top was a last minute gig at the Amsterdam Studenten Festival in the very center of the city, with real amps, drums and PA.

Nantes - 15th to 19th June

Bayonne - 20th to 25th June

Barcelone- 25th June to 30th July

Verone - 8th to 14th July

Vienna - 14th to 17th July

Brastislava - 17th to 25th July

Cracow - 25th July to 2nd August

Prague - 2nd to 10th August

Berlin - 10th to 15th August