Coups de Vents, Wind band agitator

Since 2004, the Coups de Vents association has been committed to developing and modernising wind orchestras across a wide area, drawing on its network of partners in the Hauts-de-France region and around the world. To fulfil its role as a “wind band agitator”, it organises prestigious international competitions to renew the repertoire, as well as training courses for musicians and conductors, special events and numerous concerts.

Coups de Vents has a number of international partnerships, including with the Conservatoires Nationaux Supérieurs de Musique et de Danse in Paris and Lyon, major professional wind orchestras, the Russian Composers’ Union, the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, the American Band College, the Jeju International Festival in Korea, etc

In 2009, Coups de Vents added a new string to its bow with the creation of the Coups de Vents Wind Orchestra. Made up of teachers from music schools and conservatoires in the Pas-de-Calais, this variable-geometry wind orchestra offers a wide range of original and innovative programmes. The aim is to bring contemporary wind music, jazz and world music to a wider audience.

The manifesto: let’s shake up our cultural and musical heritage!

The Orchestre d’Harmonie is a prototype born of the French Revolution.

The fruit of a working-class culture, it developed particularly in our region and also in Flanders, where it was gradually refined. With its extraordinarily well-balanced sound, the current model’s palette of colours has inspired the greatest composers, from Mozart and Berlioz to Dvorak, Brahms and Berio.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the wind band has toured the planet.
The whole world has made it its own, and now it’s coming back to us “rethought” and “remodelled” as it travels through many cultures and customs.

On the strength of this success, this international influence, should we be content to suffer the return of a model whose roots are no longer recognisable? Or, on the contrary, should we act to give it back its rightful soul, which will then enable it to reconquer the world?

Coups de Vents chooses the second option! Our aim is to promote our heritage throughout the world, while ensuring that appropriating it does not lead to a denaturing of the model… which would inevitably lead to its disappearance.

As guardians of our musical traditions, we want to be vigilant and active watchdogs against the impoverishment of our brass bands. We want to fight against the sterilising standardisation of certain repertoires. With all our might, we want to preserve, but also to re-enchant, energise and bring to life… We want to be Band Agitators!

A collaborative approach

Never alone! Working closely with various music federations, Coups de Vents involves many local players in its operations.

Honorary committee

Maurice André
Honorary Chairman and Founder

Our founder and director: Philippe Langlet

A graduate of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris in the class of Maurice André, Claude Pichaureau, Jean-Paul Holstein and Madeleine Giraudeau-Basset, conductor Philippe Langlet was director of the wind bands of the City of Le Havre for 10 years.

He has also worked in jazz and variety, conducting Nicole Croisille, Fabienne Thibault, Michel Legrand, Anne Ducros, Nino Ferrer, Didier and Francis Lockwood, Michel Delpech, Claude François, Nancy Holloway, Marcel Azzola, Bruno Brel, Juan José Mosalini and Alexis Gruss, as well as international concert artists Maurice André, Michel Becquet, Gabriel Bacquier, Catherine Michel, Allen Vizzuti, Chris Lindberg, Roger Bobo, Bryan Bowman, Michel Moraguès, Joe Burgstaller..

In 1993 he was co-opted and elected to the world board of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE), a UNESCO member representing 52 countries. He was then the founding President of WASBE France from 1998 to 2002.

In 1994, he became Director of the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Départemental de Musique et de Danse in Boulogne-sur-Mer, and then of the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Départemental de Musique et de Danse in Dunkerque in 1999.

In France and abroad, he has conducted numerous orchestras: the Orchestre de Chambre Lyrique de Paris, the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen, the USSR Red Army Choir, the Paris Opera Choir, the Kazakhstan National Orchestra, the Moscow State Orchestra, the Arizona State University Orchestra, the American Band College, Murray University, Shanghai, Taiwan, Seoul, Jeju, etc

From 1973 to 1986, he played trumpet with the stage orchestra of the Paris Opera, the Orchestre de Paris and the Orchestre National d’Ile de France, and under the baton of such prestigious conductors as Daniel Barenboïm, Lorin Maazel and Claudio Abbado.

Philippe Langlet received his diploma from Tikhon Khrennikov at the Leningrad International Festival of Peace and Humanism in 1988, and was awarded the Gold Medal of the Moscow Composers’ Union. He is now Honorary Conductor of the Russian National Wind Orchestra. In 1991 he was awarded the Arizona State University Medal of Honour.

Regularly called upon by major local authorities, he has acted as advisor to the City of Paris for the Maurice André International Trumpet Competition, to the City of Antwerp in 1993 for the Antwerp Cultural Capital of Europe, and to the Hauts de Seine département in 1992 for 92 la plus grande fanfare du monde (bringing together 2,600 musicians from all over Europe for a world premiere under the Grande Arche de la Défense).
Founding vice-president of the Association Française pour l’Essor des Ensembles à Vent (AFEEV), he was awarded the Palmes Académiques in 2014.

In 2004, as part of “Lille, European Capital of Culture”, he founded the association Coups de Vents!