The Claude Arrieu award, the last spark of the season
The Claude Arrieu award, given in July to Farnaz Modarresifar, is still not well-known to the Comité du Cœur community. Yet it is the legacy of a great composer who bequeathed her royalties to the Comité du Cœur to reward a promising young composer every two years in her memory. Portrait of the woman without whom none of this would be possible.
Every spring, the doors of Sacem’s contemporary classical music committee close behind the committee members. They then deliberate in the greatest secrecy to name the future winner of the Claude Arrieu award. They are mandated by the Comité du Cœur under the kind eye of our Vice-President, Claude Lemesle. So, who was this great lady to whom we owe this great award? And what did she want to pass on through this award that carries her name?
A great composer and musician
Claude Arrieu, whose real name was Louise-Marie Simon, was an extraordinary woman, an impassioned virtuoso. She started composing at the age of six, in a classical and contemporary register, while connecting her love of music with that of poetry.
She was a great compassionate woman and was well aware of what exclusion meant, having had to leave the programme department of Radiodiffusion Française in July 1941 when the second statute on Jews was imposed. She worked in this temple of music as a director.
Nonetheless, Claude Arrieu continued to compose music in a variety of styles for different media, and her success reflected the awards she had received throughout her life:
- 1932, First Composition Prize
- 1938, Sacem Mesureur Prize
- 1949, Rai Italia award for Frédéric Général
- 1958, Joubert award
- 1961, Enoch award.
No one could better sum up this sensitive, determined woman with an enormous heart than her colleague and friend, the writer and composer Pierre Schaeffer: “Claude Arrieu is very much of her time, with a virtuous presence, an instinct for efficiency, a daring loyalty, he said. Regardless of the means, concertos or songs, whatever the audiences, the concert elite or the crowds, as long as the emotion, through impeccable technique and spiritual awareness, finds its way to the heart.”
A strong gesture
On October 29, 1986, she drafted her will in which she designated the Comité du cœur, of which she was a member, as the beneficiary by particular title of her rights. Among her last wishes was the creation of an award carrying her name to honor a young male or female composer of symphonic music.
With this guideline in mind, the members of the committee gather to discuss and then select the year’s lucky winner. Many composers whose techniques and creations “find their way to the heart” have received this award during their performance at a summer festival.
The first was Denis Dufour in 1993, and this summer 2024, the young Franco-Iranian Farnaz Modarresifar was honoured at the Aix en Provence Festival. Between these two dates, the names of Nicolas Bacri, François Narboni and Sophie Lacaze, the first woman to win the award in 2010, stand out.… Our page dedicated to the Claude Arrieu award describes these varied and talented profiles in detail!
Claude Arrieu’s story is an inspiring one, both for her career and for the humanist woman she was. It follows in the footsteps of other donors such as Michaële, Francis Baxter and Louis Ganne, whose bequests have not only given a ray of hope to authors who are members of Sacem in cold seasons, but have also made the Comité du cœur a place for celebration, with award ceremonies either at the General Assembly or at a festival.
Mutual aid does not just take place during the donors’ lifetime. Leaving a legacy that lasts through time helps to connect past and present, memories and fights.
Find out more about donations and bequests
Anne Dorr, author-director, administrator of the Comité du cœur
