“In>Doors World Tour” Starts in Debrecen

The new Jean Michel Jarre‘s tour, “In>Doors World Tour”, started for good in Fonix Csarnok hall at Debrecen, Hungary last monday May 4, 2009.

Joining Jarre on stage were Francis Rimbert at keyboards, Dominique Perrier with his stunning solos and Claude Samard, at keyboards and percussions and acting as musical director of the show aswell.

The tracklist was a real mixture of well known tracks and songs not played live for almost twenty years, like Calypso 3 or Equinoxe 5. The music was mainly played absolutely live and respecting the original sound of the tracks. There were not new tracks, tough Jarre said in various interviews that he aimed to include new compositions  in the tracklist.

Visually the show had lots of lasers and lighting effects reminding the China concerts in 1981 and the Oxygene Tour in 1997, but there were not HD image projection as said in the press note made to promote the tour.

The tracklist played in the inaugural concert of the tour was:

– Industrial Revolution 2

– Magnetic Fields 1

– Equinoxe 7

– Oxygene 2

– Rendez Vous 3

– Rendez Vous 2

– Souvenir of China

– Magnetic Fields 2

– Oxygene 5

– Variation 3

– Equinoxe 4

– Equinoxe 5

– Chronologie 6

– Chronologie 2

– Oxygene 4

– Calypso 3

– Oxygene 12

Concert in Canary Islands Cancelled

It seems that the project of a concert by Jean Michel Jarre and Brian May in Canary Island’s site Roque de los Muchachos for the inauguration of the GTC has been cancelled.

Tough Fairlight Jarre had knowledge about this issue few days ago via a close source to Jarre himself, yesterday Dr. Garik Israelian confirmed this circumstance saying that “unfortunately we are not going to make the concert in the day of the inauguration of GTC due lack of money.  We are going to continue fighting to obtain the funding for the concert and I hope some day we could manage  to realize our dream. It will be this year or next year”.

Thank you very much to Dr. Israelian for this kindness and dedication all this months.

Maurice Jarre (1924-2009)

Maurice Jarre, famous for his compositions for cinema and father of Jean Michel Jarre, passed away in Los Angeles last March 29, aged 84.

Winner of three Oscars (Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and A Passage to India) and lots of other awards (the last of them, the Berlin’s Festival Golden Bear last February), composed the music of more than 15o films and worked with the finest directors of the history of cinema, like Alfred Hitchcock, Clint Eastwood, John Houston, David Lean, etc…

The relation with his son Jean Michel was not easy because the split of Maurice and France Pejot, Jean Michel’s mother, and the departure of Maurice to America to work on Hollywood. But, the relation of Maurice and Jean Michel became more and more closer on recent years: A proof of this is the special composition which Maurice gave to Jean Michel as a gift in his wedding with Anne Parillaud in 2005; and Jean Michel was seated on the first row of the Lyon Auditorium on the concert that celebrated the 50 years of Maurice‘s career. The very last proof of this closer relationship was that Aero Productions, production agency of Jean Michel Jarre, gave the news about Maurice Jarre‘s die to the media.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy talked about Maurice Jarre saying that “his work was majestic and generous, classic and popular”, and transmitted his sorrow to Jean Michel Jarre “to whom could transmit his passion for music”.

Rest in peace, monsieur Maurice Jarre.

“The Concerts In China” DVD: Official Press Release from Dreyfus Music

Some copies of  “The Concerts in China” DVD have been sold on Ebay, so Fairlight Jarre contacted with Francis Dreyfus Music whom sent us an official press release:

Thank you for alerting me on the availability of the China Concerts DVD last week.
The cover artwork is indeed the same as the original vinyl album, CD and VHS.
After investigation, it appears that some copies of the DVD were sold in Australia during a very limited period in December 2008 despite the ban but this violation has been denounced and the distribution stopped.
I confirm that only Disques Dreyfus /Jean Michel Jarre, co-producers of the concert, have the rights to DVD exploitation.
The DVD release of this programme has not been planned so far but the Dreyfus and Jarre staffs are now considering it .

Greetings.
Danièle

Thank you very much to Víctor “ZZERO” Maqueda and very specially to Danièle Feuillerat from Disques Dreyfus for this information.

Concert In Canary Islands? (Update 03/03/2009)

Things are going bad for the long awaited concert by Jean Michel Jarre and Brian May for the inauguration of the GTC, in Roque de los Muchachos, scheluded for this very summer.

Few days ago, the press said that the global crisis could concern the accomplishment of the event, tough Dr. Garik Israelian told about this issue to Fairlight Jarre last December.

In other article, the press said that canarian government couldn´t cope alone with the budget of the concert (4 millions €) without the collaboration of private enterprises.

In the other hand, yesterday Fairlight Jarre received an email from Dr. Garik Israelian tellling us, with sadness, that “we have no news yet. Finding out money for this event is not an easy task. And is even more difficult for me, because I’m not into the money’s world. This is a different world where people don’t make things because they enjoy making things happen, but in this world people make things only for money. With regard to the participation of Phil Collins and Brian May in the concert, who cares, if every time there are fewer and fewer possibilities that concert could be staged”.

We hope that all the troubles can be solved for good. Thank you again to Dr. Garik Israelian for keeping us updated with the very last news about this event.

Concert in Canary Islands? (Update 21/01/2009)

Last January 15, in the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, the Internacional Year of Astronomy was inaugurated by the Director General of UNESCO Mr. M. Koichiro Matsuura who stated in his speech that “Jean Michel Jarre has accepted to be the Ambassador for this International Year of Astronomy and he is going to perform an outdoor concert in Canary Islands next July as part of the events of this Internacional Year of Astronomy”.

This announcement made by the Director General of UNESCO was in total contradiction with what Dr. Garik Israelian said us some weeks ago, so Fairlight Jarre decided to contact again with Dr. Israelian yesterday to know the true about the real progress of the event. So, Garik said us that “I were with Jean Michel in Paris during the inauguration. We are almost everyday in contact with Brian (May) too. There are MANY supporters of this event. Jarre is also doing as much as he can for this event, but we all know that it’s no easy. Next week we’ve got series of meetings in Madrid with politicians, Ministers and important and powerful enterprises. We have found also an astronomer, friend of mine, who is working in the Parlament; is a good guy and he is going to help us very much. Like you see, here we are fighting for the concert. We are very happy with the format of the concert and with more things about the event. We’ll see what happens, but I’m still optimistic”.

Also today the canarian press has stated that the british singer and drummer Phil Collins could join Jean Michel Jarre and Brian May on stage at the “Concert of the Stars” (working title for the event) next July during the inauguration of the GTC as one of the main events of the International Year of Astronomy. This is what Francisco Sánchez, Director of the Institute of Astrophisics of Canary Islands, said to Cadena SER radio station yesterday. 

So, the things remains more or less the same that in December, and, spite of the words of the Director General of UNESCO and spite of the informations in canary press, we have to still be very cautious about this event. They continue in the quest to obtain money (public or private) for the event, and today we still don’t know if this concert will go ahead or not. Thank you very much to Dr. Garik Israelian for his kindness and infinite patience. We will keeping you informed.

New Book about Jean Michel Jarre

Jean Michel Jarre, le Magicien du son et de la lumière, is the title of the new biography book about Jean Michel Jarre written by Michael Duguay and edited by Editions Cöeqten. This book (in french) have 230 pages spanning Jarre’s musical career.

The book’s cost is 20 € plus 4 € of shipping costs and you can order the book directly from the editorial (payment via paypal) sending an email to: coetquenweb@wanadoo.fr

Concert in Canary Islands? (Updated 10/12/2008)

Like we told you some time ago, our aim in Fairlight Jarre was to establish a regular contact with the organization of the Canary Islands concert project that, as you kow, is intended to be staged in 2009. Heading the organization is Dr. Garik Israelian who, again with his kindness, has attended Fairlight Jarre  once more telling us the very last news about de Canary Islands concert project; so, Dr. Israelian told us that “sadly we still have not information about the funding for the concert. I have a meeting with JMJ three weeks ago in Moscow and we talked a lot about the project in Canary Islands. For him this is the project of his life (and, of course, for me and for Brian May too). We are very very excited about this project. We’ve got plans and ideas that will make this project thousand times bigger than the concerts at the Pyramids, Houston or Moscow… I already said to you this, but this concert will be the biggest ever staged in the history of this planet. I have reunited all the scientific community around this project and we are to record the concert in HD (from an international station, making then a direct broadcast from space using different devices). We are fighting with the limits of our imagination and this is what is so exciting for us.

Sadly, the politicians on Canary Islands said to us that there is a crisis and that they have not enough money (although this concert’s budget will be two times lower than the concerts in the Pyramids or in Moscow in 1997, for instance). Let me please say again that this event will be an historical one. Steven Spielberg and James Cameron are intending to be there too. For the first time, Astronomy and music will have a real union via this project in which I have been working for seven years. And now, a “crisis”… But, what is a “crisis”? I think that they are creating a lot of hysteria about this issue, but this “crisis” doesn’t affect to soccer or comunications… We have to look for other solutions if the politicians do not endorse the project”.

So here you are the last news about this project. Like ever, we are going to keep you updated with the latest news about this project as soon as we have any information. Thankyou very much, Dr. Garik Israelian, for your kindness.

First Dates “IN-DOORS” World Tour (Updated 17/02/2009)


Some days ago, we talked about the project of a new Jean Michel Jarre Tour in 2009. Well, now it seems this project became a reality as we know the first dates of this project named “World Arena Tour”:

Aero Productions have confirmed that this will be a “greatest hits” tour but it may include some unreleased pieces. The intention of  Jean Michel Jarre is to tour during April, May and June 2009, so, of course, we will keep you updated with all news and new dates of this tour. We are discussing about this new project in our Forum.

Jean Michel Jarre on Fotonauts

Fotonauts, a community to show and share photos, features some great official photo albums about Jean Michel Jarre, updated every now and then. Most of the images are taken by Thomas Alsina, close collaborator of Jarre for almost ten years. There is a lot of images, the oldest ones from the Apple Expo show performed in Paris in 1998, and from most recent concerts like Beijing 2004, Merzouga 2006 and especially about the current “Oxygene in Concert” tour, featuring images of the instruments and musicians joining this tour. By clicking here you can enjoy the photo albums.