Ring in the New Year with a Jean-Michel Jarre concert from Notre-Dame de Paris

The exclusive event is open and free of charge, thanks to the City of Paris and UNESCO

Concerts, light spectacles, TV shows, they all sound like familiar ways to celebrate New Year’s Eve. But after spending the last nearly 12 months under the sign of the coronavirus pandemic, we sure need more than this. To help us properly say goodbye to 2020, the Paris authorities have come up with a great surprise for us all, residents, visitors and future tourists in the city of light.

In partnership with UNESCO, the French capital invites us all to “come to the other side” and enjoy an unparalleled cultural experience, courtesy of electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre, in which the virtually reconstructed Notre-Dame cathedral will take centre stage.

Ringing in 2021 from home, but properly

This Thursday, the joint efforts of the City of Paris, UNESCO, Jean-Michel Jarre and French Virtual Reality (VR) start-up VRrOOm will create new sound and visual worlds as part of a concert-spectacle entitled “Welcome to the other side”. The entire event will take place virtually in a safe corona-proof manner, which ultimately makes it available to every person owning a device connected to internet, a radio or a TV.

On the evening of 31 December, from 11:25 pm to 12:15 am, the electro artist will be performing in the setting of the Notre-Dame Cathedral. The 50-minute program features specially re-orchestrated tracks from his recent Grammy-nominated album, Electronica.

In reality, the artist will be performing from a studio in Paris, while his avatar will be displayed inside the virtually reconstructed cathedral, which suffered devastating fire in 2019. The location, however, was not chosen at random. By organising this concert, the partners want to send a message of hope and demonstrate that, despite challenges, culture will rise again.

So, if you want to ring in 2021 with a global party, make sure to follow the concert in one of several ways:

• on the social VR platform VRchat, via PC, or in virtual reality for the audience equipped with VR headsets;
• Live-streaming on Jarre’s social media platforms, or those of the City of Paris;
• Audio broadcast on French public radio France Inter;
• TV broadcast on BFM TV and BFM Paris news channel.

The video is already available below.

Source: jeanmicheljarre on YouTube