"En fanfare" is above all the story of two brothers who are separated by everything despite a common origin. And it is "musically" that Emmanuel Courcol has sought to bring them together. Thibaut Désormeaux is a Parisian conductor and composer with an international career. Jimmy Lecocq works in a school canteen and plays the trombone in the brass band of Walincourt, a small fictional town in the North.

The film's music is a reflection of a plural world, where the barriers between genres and audiences no longer form watertight partitions. First of all, there is the great world of classical music, which is that of Thibaut Désormaux. She opens and closes the film, with Beethoven's Egmont Overture and Ravel's Bolero. We also hear Mozart's Concerto 23, Mendelssohn's The Hebrides...  Then there is the world of brass bands and bands, that of Jimmy Lecocq, the younger brother, represented by the Triumphal March of Aida or When the Saints Sing... The brothers finally discover that they have in common not only perfect pitch, but also creative fibre. Thus, Quadrature is a contemporary and demanding symphonic work, which we see Thibaut composing and which will be performed at the Seine Musicale, in the final scene of the film. Jimmy also composes, and the credits of the film are saValse pour Thibaut written for his brother and present on the record in orchestral form solo piano and concert band.

Between these three musical centres - classical, brass band and creation - there are bridges, such as jazz or French song. Bridges also between the professional and amateur worlds. 

Whether the workers of a factory appropriate Ravel's Bolero, inspired in part by the mechanical rhythm of the nascent industry, that a classical musician rediscovers the human dimension in popular music, that the exchange on musical language between a professional and an amateur allows us to travel from Verdi to jazz - all this makes "En fanfare" bear an essential societal question on living together that goes far beyond the framework of entertainment.

A musical fable against a backdrop of social determinism, "En fanfare" seeks a space for fraternal sharing and mutual discovery through the universal language of music, which connects two foreign but complementary worlds. In this sense, the final choral scene, which unites symphony orchestra, brass band and audience in the same spirit, suggests that the amateur musical practices that irrigate the less privileged territories can claim the same title of nobility as "great music".

"En Fanfare" - (The Marching Band)
Director Emmanuel Courcol 
Original music Michel Petrossian 
With Orchestre National d'Ile de France and Harmony of the miners of Laillang 
Label Plaza Mayor Company Ltd