Since the creation of PIANO AND CO, Nathalie NÉGRO has ensured that her social commitments are reflected in all the company’s activities. Since 2007, she has been focusing on the issue of gender equality in the music industry. As part of this effort, the Musical Bounce Back project features artistic direction structured around the theme of women composers.

Musical Bounce Back, which is co-financed by the Erasmus+ program of the European Union, is a resilient and unifying project. Thanks to musical creations, an innovative pedagogical journey and the realization of a documentary, this project raises awareness among euro-mediterranean musicians, performers, teachers and publics about gender equality, and especially the promotion and visibility of female composers.

Teachers and learners imagined tools and methods of tomorrow to raise awareness on this issue. Together they created original content in a pedagogical toolbox (podcasts, interviews and questionnaires, gathering of data and scores, debates production, round tables, cooperation games…)

During 3 years, concerts, workshops, round tables were organized as well as in-person and online rehearsals which enabled to meet, discover and maintain the link between musicians and female composers involved in the project.

In April 2024, a one-week public event has brought together Musical Bounce Back’s European musicians in Marseille around a wide programme with round tables, film projections, concerts, and, above all, the presentation of the final creation in the Conservatory of Marseille, which was the occasion to give as world première the work by female composers.

For the Musical Bounce Back project, PIANO AND CO commissioned musical creations from the female composers Eve RISSER (France) and Esthir LEMI (Greece).

Anne ALIX is producing a documentary about three generations of female musicians involved in the project.

This initiative is being carried out by six partners from the fields of music education, educational engineering, research, innovation, and musical creation:

PIANO AND CO (Marseille, France), leader, the Organisation of European Programmes and Cultural Relations (Limassol, Cyprus), Laboratory of Music Acoustics and Technology/ LabMAT at the National and Kapodistrian University (Athens, Greece), Casa do Professor (Braga, Portugal), the Komitas State Conservatory (Yerevan, Armenia), and the Laboratory of Collective and Artificial Intelligence/LICA (Marseille, France).