The Pablo Casals Festival

Prades music academy

The Prades music academy is created in 1976. Seventy young musicians come along to Prades to play under the direction and with the help of talented and experimented masters.

Fred MUCCIOLI, former teacher at Toulouse Conservatoire and first violinist, comes to Prades in 1966 as a performer in “El pessebre”. He was dying to create a musical training course and he entrusted his project to his friend Louis Monestier. In 1970, the city council and the Festival board accepted the new musical enterprise that was so in line with the Festival activity. The teachers dedication and selflessness made it possible to open the first course.

Françoise CURAUDEAU, his student, assisted him to organize the course and also as a violin teacher. Later on, Françoise married Michel LETHIEC, the artistic director of the Festival and they both developed the teaching activity from a single training course up to the Prades music academy.