AFFRANCHIES
Singers, musicians

Affranchies received a creative grant in partnership with the Atelier des Artistes en Exil.

Interview of Aida Nosrat – singer
What is your artistic background ?
I started learning European classical music at the age of six in Iran, playing the recorder. Four years later I started learning classical violin and at the age of 12 I entered the Tehran School of Music, until I graduated at the age of 19. From 2004 to 2011, I was a member of the Tehran Symphony Orchestra as a violinist. I also studied musicology at the University of Science and Practice, and became particularly interested in traditional Persian singing, which Gholamreza Rezayi taught me. In 2006, with my husband Babak Amir Mobasher, I formed the group Manushan, developing our own style of music. We arrived in France in 2016, and I am currently studying jazz at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional (CRR) in Paris.

How do you see your profession today ?
Even though my artistic journey has not been easy at all, because of the situation of female musicians and singers in Iran, for whom it is very difficult and even impossible to practice, I am very happy with what I have managed to do so far. I have struggled so hard, and I continue to do so, to achieve my goals, my dream. The only thing that concerns me now is the disappearance of musical diversity. Most of the budgets are going to commercial arts and it makes me sad to think that a whole part of musical variety will be unknown to us in the future.

How do you see yourself in 5 years ? In 10 years ?
I see myself becoming a successful singer and musician in France and in the world. I will do my best and work hard, as I have always done, to achieve this goal.

Interview of Angerlin Urbina – musician
What is your artistic background ?
I started playing music in Venezuela at the age of nine in ‘El Sistema’, the children's symphony orchestra. A few years later, I joined the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra, with which I had the opportunity to participate in many festivals and tours in Europe (Germany, Norway, Portugal, France, Turkey, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Liechtenstein and England among others). In 2015, I came to France to continue to deepen my studies in flute at the Conservatoire Départemental de Pantin. At the same time, I was a music teacher in an orchestra class project in elementary schools with the association Passeurs d'Arts. In 2018, I obtained my diploma of musical studies (DEM) followed by two years of PPFP (between 2018 and 2020), where I obtained my certification as a result of my work with local children. Finally, I took a flute course to do more in-depth work as a flautist. At the moment I continue to give private flute lessons and participate in various artistic projects and presentations.

How do you see your profession today ?
In France, as everywhere else in the world, being an artist is a difficult job when it comes to integrating professionally. Each of us must reinvent ourselves and find a way to continue doing what we love. Faced with these difficulties as a flautist, I have decided to devote myself to passing on all that I have experienced and learned in my musical career to children in disadvantaged situations and neighborhoods, in order to give them the chances and tools that can nourish their spirit and bring them a moment of learning, sharing and integration.

How do you see yourself in 5 years ? In 10 years ?
I see myself continuing to pass on my knowledge to all audiences and especially to those who most need it.

Interview of Diana la Fraise – singer
What is your artistic background ?
I started as a self-taught musician. As a child, I sang at churches and in gospel groups. Then, afterwards, I started to evolve as a singer-performer in clubs. There I interpreted Congolese rumba classics and the repertoires of great African female singers. Now I can finally start my solo career.

How do you view your profession today ?
Through music and singing, I can express myself and pass on to others all that I have experienced and learned. This is my passion.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years ? In 10 years ?
In 5 or 10 years, I see myself making music history and being among the best female African voices of my generation. I would like to be able to go on tour and make albums that have an impact.

Interview of Dighya Mohammed Salem  – singer
What is your artistic background ?
I have always sung. At the age of 14, in high school in Algeria, I was part of a traditional Sahrawi music group for the first time. We were called Shlf. I continued to sing in several groups in the Sahara, in my village Dahla and in Algeria. I was named best regional singer thanks to my first single Haya Shababna. At the age of 19, I joined the Sahrawi revolutionary group Shaheed El Wali, with whom I recorded an album in Paris in 1989, and went on tour in Spain, Italy, Germany, South Korea and Algeria. After this experience, I returned to Algeria to continue my studies, and I also worked at the Directorate of Culture of Western Sahara. I arrived in France, in 2018, with my daughter. I founded, at the Atelier des Artistes en Exil, the Dighya Moh-Salem band with which I have a project to record an album. Currently, I also sing in a project at the Paris Opera.

How do you see your profession today ?
This profession gives me freedom, not only creative and expressive but also economic. Singing has given me the opportunity to live a freer life. This freedom increased after my arrival in France. Here, the conditions for creation, the material, everything is better than at home. In the camp there was no electric light, for example. On the other hand, music also allows me to express my struggle for freedom and that of my people. All my songs are about the Sahara, the struggle for independence, peace, the fact that we want to live like others and that the world realizes how much we suffer.

How do you see yourself in 5 years ? In 10 years ?
In the future, I hope to have recorded the album of the Dighya Moh-Salem band, to be able to tour, to continue to work on current projects and new opportunities that will arise. I count on the projects that will be completed for new doors to open and continue to work, work and work, to build this beautiful path that is life.

Interview of Nasima Shaveva – singer
What is your artistic background ?
I started to sing at age five, my family all being musicians and artists. I also joined a popular music group very early in Kazakhstan. After three years of studying music and singing, and meeting my husband, we created a band with which we toured several times in Europe and Asia. In 2015, we came to France. Today, I am also interested in fashion, with the aim of returning and showing within the Uyghur culture.

How do you see your profession today ?
For me, music, fashion and art are a way to popularize Uyghur culture. If I defend and show my culture, I make it persevere and do not let it die.

How do you see yourself in 5 years ? In 10 years ?
The mixture of fashion and music, of visual and musical colors, interests me particularly. These are two elements that constitute the identity of each region of my country, used with similar bases but very different subtleties. Thanks to this I can continue to portray my country. My art will allow me to look back and say that I have done good things for my people by showing their culture.

Interviews conducted in 2021
Photography credit: Julia Grandperret