Les Marteaux de Gellone, Innovative and Participatory Medieval Music Festival

The program for this ninth edition of the Festival The Gellone Hammers designed by Gisèle Clément, director of the CIMM (International Center for Medieval Music), will be deployed in two stages in Montpellier, then in Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert (Hérault). Concerts, workshop courses, meetings, street music, conferences and violin making fairs can be discovered from May 22 to 31. The Festival The Gellone Hammers is an experience to live the Middle Ages in the present. Electronic music is one of the surprise guests.

“Transmission, requirement and a real scene”

Gisèle Clément offers a Medieval Music Festival which unites creation, research, transmission and public participation: “ Les Marteaux de Gellone is dedicated to medieval and modal music, seen as a living material. The concerts interact with the internships, the residencies, the conference, the archaeo-violin making, the students, the residents. » The theme of the 2026 edition focuses on modal music, linked to bodies and environments. Because the music is born between a voice and a place, a gesture and an acoustic, a memory and a present. »

The 22nd, the Feast The Gellone Hammers opens at the Romanesque Church of Sainte-Croix de Celleneuve – one of the oldest churches in Montpellier -, with a 13th century poem by Gautier de Coincy interpreted by the duo Cristina Alís Raurich (organettist, musicologist) and Brice Duisit (performer, lutenist and bowed fiddle player). This concert is a rediscovery of medieval poetry as a sound experience.

On May 23, multi-talented Leah Stuttard (singer, harpist, composer, etc.) performs Travel by Margery Kempe – a 15th century female mystic who traveled through medieval Europe. This work is a set of English carols. Leah Stuttard invites the public to get into singing through two workshops before the evening’s concert. We will find her with Bruno Bonhoure and Khaï-Dong Luong – both founders of The Chamber of Tears -, on May 24, this time at the Maison pour Tous Marie-Curie, to attend the screening of the film The Divine Comedy Theater. This participatory creation will bring together projection, music and story around Dante Alighieri, in order to create a dialogue between medieval imagination and contemporary forms. Khaï-Dong Luong is the author of a thesis on the subject, he questions the gesture of creation and artistic commitment from the angle of medieval music. On May 25, again at the Sainte-Croix Church, the concert of the medievalist students of the new promotion Ensemble-School will crown workshops offered during the day. These introductory courses in medieval music are open to all. It is a highly anticipated stage of the Festival by Gisèle Clément, director of the CIMM and lecturer at Paul-Valéry University in Montpellier: “ Students, amateurs, professional artists create together. This is exactly our vision: transmission, demand and a real scene. » The second part of Gellone hammers is hosted in Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert.

Great Occitan oratorio for female choir

At the Chapelle Saint-Laurent, on May 28, 29 and 30, the Symposium on modal music will report on the interactions between songs, bodies and environments, and news in archaeo-violin making. At the Place de la Liberté, on May 30 and 31, the Archaeo-Lutherie Salon will be an invitation to discover the making of ancient instruments, set to music. On the program: exhibitions, demonstrations, sales and street music – strolling traditional oboes from the association’s School Group shoreson May 31. Two bagpipe makers will be present.

For the concerts, on May 28, at the majestic Abbey Church of Gellone – another treasure of Romanesque art -, Night of Modal Voices, Hebrew and Gregorian Chants will offer a dialogue between Gregorian chants by Damien Poisblaud and Hebrew chants by Alexandre Cerveux (manuscript specialist and baroque singer), two traditions for shared listening. This concert is linked to the theme of the Conference. The mode is revealed by the voice, the melody by the body, the breath.

On the 29th, Mirror with Nolwenn Le Guern and Julien Pellegrini renews the medieval and electronic repertoire. This creation brings together medieval music and contemporary sound experimentation, with an element of improvisation. A technician will be on site to play the music live.

On the 30th, Barlaam and Jehoshaphat of the Ensemble In the dialogues is a travel tale between East and West. This work presented at the Saint-Laurent Chapel, on the theme of the circulation of cultures, brings together voice, fiddle, rebec, flutes and harp. On May 31, Madalena by Manu Théron and the Lamparo Company closes the Festival at the Gellone Abbey Church. This great Occitan oratorio for female choir – 23 performers – is a powerful show with a Mediterranean dimension.

The Gellone Hammers is a demanding and quality cultural tool, but this Festival is suffering a clear decline in public support, in particular from the DRAC, which threatens its existence. “ We find it difficult to understand that a project which precisely responds to the stated priorities: cultural diversity, youth, rurality, living heritage, innovation, cooperation, is so weakened, at the very moment when these priorities are proclaimed. », explains Gisèle Clément. The Gellone Hammers allows “ spaces where artists, researchers, students and residents work together. A Festival like this is not just an artistic program. It is a way of creating society through culture. »

Fatma Alilate

Festival The Gellone Hammers, Medieval music factory

From May 22 to 31, 2026

From May 22 to 25, 2026 in Montpellier: Romanesque Church of Sainte-Croix and Maison Pour All Marie Curie (Celleneuve) All evenings are at 7 p.m. FREE ENTRANCE

From May 28 to 31, 2026 in Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert: Gellone Abbey Church, Saint-Laurent Chapel, Place de la Liberté All evenings are at 8 p.m. Free entry and concerts from €5 to €20

THE CIMM – International Center for Medieval Music, in Montpellier, is a unique place in Europe: a laboratory where medieval voices meet contemporary creation, where research nourishes live performance, where culture is shared between artists, researchers, students and residents. Today, faced with drastic cuts in public subsidiesour action is weakened. However, we know how much culture is a essential common good : it connects generations, brings memories into dialogue, opens shared horizons. To sing is to care. To listen is already to act.