Fantastic Free Concerts in Paris

One of the happy pluses of living in Paris is the plethora of fantastic free concerts that you can attend throughout the year.

Paris is one of the most expensive cities to live in or travel to, so it’s a great bonus to  rely on these free concerts to fill your need for high quality live music.

A lot of  concerts are often held in the magnificent churches of Paris, which in itself makes for a wonderful venue and feast for the eyes.

I find music in general to have a mood elevating effect on most people.  Live concerts serve to not only increase the whole experience but augment the mood brightening effects.

For depressed people, it helps just by the mere fact that it gets them out of the house, which many are reluctant to do in the first place.

Most concerts are classical, but  there are other musical variations as well, from jazz, big band to rock; whatever your taste in music might be.

All it takes it some research, easily found on the net and in some instances make a reservation.

The two keys words you look for are “gratuit” meaning free in French and Libre  Participation or free to contribute or not.

This in other words means they will have a basket at the exits in hopes you will give a few Euros to help cover costs and donate to the musician.

You are certainly free to walk out without contributing anything If you want.

The ones that I first discovered here were at Eglise Saint Merri on Rue Saint Martin by the Pompidou center.

The church is rather small by Parisian standards and its antiquity is still quite visible today, with floors pocked and chipped with time.

Saint Merri even still has a very subtle old dusty odor which add to its charm; more so in the ancient chapels in back no longer in use.

I love the concerts at Saint Merri held on Saturday nights at 8pm and on Sunday at 4 pm.

The acoustics are great and I like the rather cosy atmosphere they offer.  They are held in the lower nave of the church with chairs placed in a circle around the musicians.

Many of the musicians are budding young artists climbing up the ladder of musical fame.

Several of them have recordings made and they too are offered for sale afterwards.  Sometimes they offer free tours of the church afterwards in French which I find interesting too.

The free concerts at Saint Merri are usually Libre Participation.   Saint Merri also puts on an wonderful and very ecumenical all night musical event called Nuit Sacrée.

This year it will start on May 20 and run 24 hours with musical representations from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim and Hindu traditions.

The huge Cathedral of Saint Eustache  in Les Halles, is another very popular setting for free concerts.  The majority of them are organ recitals where you will hear the best!

Occasionally, they will offer other free concerts and some paying ones are scheduled throughout the year.

They are renowned for having one of the oldest organs in France and though old its powerful vibrations reverberating off the magnificent gothic walls and ceiling, are enough to send shivers up your skin.

Not surprising the concerts are given in the back of the church  facing this wonderful organ to experience the fullest of the sounds.

They start at 5:30pm on Sunday and for Roman Catholics like myself, the evening Mass follows which makes for a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon in Paris.

Saint Eustache is also very musically oriented that they offer a fantastic 36 Hours A Saint Eustache that takes place in accordance with Fête de la Musique  in June.

36 Heures starts the day before and goes on continuous throughout the night and day till the midnight of the 21st.

The offerings are from classical to jazz, folk to sacred and fair amount of rock as well reinterpreted to more subdued liturgical tones, an interesting feat for sure.

La Madeleine church also offers free organ recitals on Sundays at 4pm and occasional other free concerts during the year.

I noticed that one of these would be Montana State University Chorale playing this Wednesday, which I had the pleasure of attending.

They were really exquisite and the whole concert was soothing to my soul. Half of their presentation was sung in Latin and the other  American hymns; both enthusiastically received. 

We were able to talk to pretty Hailey Mauer, who is a 3rd generation member of her musically inclined family who will be branching out into photography as well.

Saint Roch’s church holds free classical concerts at noon on Mondays at 12:30 to 13:15.

Saint Sulpice and Notre Dame Cathedral occasionally offer free organ music too, you just have to consult their individual websites.

A rather hidden secret is that you can find  fantastic free concerts in many of the various international cultural institutes of countries that are quite numerous  here.

These cultural institutes are implanted to serve as a base of promoting the individual countries national cultural treasures, be it music, art, photography and dance amongst other art forms.

Free concerts at these cultural centers generally require a reservation these days, where security is of the utmost concern.

Not only are they quite popular and well attended by expats from these various countries, but also with an international crowds of music seekers.

I am on the email list of several, and I have known of some people who subscribe to practically of all them.

The cultural centers also offer quite a few of paying concerts as well at reduced prices.

If you have a favourite composer , then zero in on his country of origin cultural center, as they lean towards multiple offerings of their famous composers.

For example, I really enjoy the music of Liszt.  Not surprising that I often attend the Hungarian institute, because they often showcase this composer.

Recently I attended a fabulous mater class of students that were attending the Liszt Institute in Châteaudun, a small town south of Paris on the northern border of the Loire valley.

Not only did I hear really excellent piano playing, but I learned quite a bit about the composer and how he wanted his compositions to be played.

As a therapist I am always intrigued by the personality of composers and how they play out in their creative music.

As a painter’s feelings can be relayed on a canvas, a composer’s mood and personality characteristics can certainly permeate his musical compositions.

The music of Erik Satie for example has strong sad undertones and in some pieces outright feelings of grief and melancholy.

Many of the works of Frederic Chopin likewise have  melancholic airs and convey as sense of longing that Chopin himself struggled with inside himself.

The Polish Cultural Center is offering free outdoor Chopin concerts this summer at the kiosk at Parc Montsouris on Sundays at 5pm starting June 10.

Parc Montsouris and Luxembourg Gardens both hold Sunday afternoon concerts during the summer.

The Italian Cultural Institute in the 7th arrondissement offers free concerts and operettas too.  I have attended several great concerts at the Serbian Center across from the Pompidou Center.

At the new Mona Bismarck American House in the 16th arrondissement, the summertime free concerts are given on the vast lawn that overlooks the Seine.

American and Franco-American singers and musicians from classical, jazz, folk and rock can be heard on Friday and Saturday evenings.

Paris Prague Jazz Club in a pretty vaulted cave underneath the Institute Tchèque Cultural Center on Rue Bonaparte in the 6th is almost free for 5 euros with inexpensive Czech beer and wines on Friday evenings.

Cité Internationale Des Arts, which is actually a residence for young artists, at Pont Marie Metro,  has free concerts throughout the week which can be found on their website.

Likewise the Conservatoire de Paris, the national school of music and dance has free entrance to various concerts on their campus at Villette.

The biggest free musical blowout is the Féte de la Musique always held on the night of the Summer Solstice on June 21.

If you are ever in France anywhere on that day, you can’t miss it because the festival takes place all over.

If that isn’t enough for you, you can always enjoy musicians in the Paris Metro, some of which I have found excellent and worth hanging around to drop a few coins in the hat, especially the large orchestras on weekend afternoons in Châtelet.

Street musicians can be heard just about anywhere in the city and I find it always fun to take in the street performers  on any given weekend day on the bridge Pont Saint Louis that connects Ile de La Cité to Isle Saint Louis just behind the gardens of Notre Dame.

Frankly, with all the free music one can hear in Paris, I rarely venture out to a paying one, though there are loads of those too.

The many varied cultural experiences I can have, many for free is just one of the reasons I prefer to live here.

There is always something to look forward doing and honestly it can be difficult to fit in all that interests you!