La Boîte à joujoux
In 1913, illustrator André Hellé made contact with the greatest French composer of the moment, Claude Debussy, to ask him to set to music a children's book he had just illustrated. Debussy immediately agrees, surely with the purpose of making a gift to his daughter Claude-Emma, nicknamed Chouchou, his little muse of only 4 years old.
He begins to composing the music inspired by the book but unfortunately dies before he has finished the orchestration. This will later be brought to to completion by his pupil André Caplet.
A multi-part musical performance that takes us on an exploration of the magical happenings in a toy store during an enchanted night.

L'Histoire de Babar
The story of Babar, the king of elephants, his wife Céleste, the Old Lady, the mischievous monkey Zephyr, and the wise old elephant Cornélius... is nothing more than a story invented from a mother, Cécile de Brunhoff, as a tale for her children. The father, Jean, then has the idea of turning it into a book and asks to his brother Michel to take care of the illustrations. Jean and Michel de Brunhoff's book is published in 1931 and is immediately an incredible success.
One day a little girl hears her cousin, composer Francis Poulenc, playing the piano, hands him her copy of Babar's book and asks him to compose the music. Poulenc obeys her and begins to commenting through music on the de Brunhoffs' story. When the story is sad, it seems that the music cries, at other times it is scary or becomes funny, cheerful, dancing... The score is composed from Poulenc for piano and later another composer, Jean Françaix, takes care of the orchestration.
We hear it today in a third version, the orchestration made from Philippe Gramatico.

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