Musical Forest bathing: for rejuvenating listening
This workshop is a sample of the Musical Forest Baths that Camille Villanove created with the Festival des Forêts (France). It is inspired by shinrin yoku, a Japanese medical practice of immersion and meditation in the forest. Simultaneously entering contact with nature, with music and with oneself: these three dimensions, intertwined according to a precise protocol, reinforce each other and open a path towards self-knowledge and harmony.
In the park overlooking the Faculty of Music at the University of Montreal, the group follows a 45-minute course, guided by the mediator. Alternate times of walking, listening to a few short pieces performed by a musician at various stopping points, discussions on the effect of music, observation of nature and body anchoring.
The repertoire chosen with the artist can range from classical to improvisation or traditional music. It allows you to experience various emotions, to center yourself, to get moving, to broaden your knowledge of the instrument and to enter a relationship with the performer.
The group then devotes fifteen minutes to re-reading the lived experience in order to question the impact of a collective walk-in nature on the quality of listening.
Biography
Camille Villanove’s career unfolds according to a single desire: to arouse a taste for music. She trained in musicology at the Sorbonne and at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris. Invited by concert halls, national orchestras, festivals, media libraries, it presents educational concerts, chamber music, listening workshops, hosts meetings with artists. With the Forest Festival, she has designed a new form of musical experience associated with healing through nature: the Musical Forest Baths. To make people discover the classical repertoire in an accessible tone, she also likes to use video: series “Allez… tells Camille” (National Orchestra of Île-de-France), “Music in sharing”, reports for the Association French orchestras. At Sorbonne-University/Sorbonne-Nouvelle, at the Philharmonie de Paris, for the Royaumont Foundation and the Pôle sup’ Bordeaux-Nouvelle Aquitaine, she trains students and musicians in the mediation of music.
