Based on a text by Rabbi Philippe Haddad
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Les enfants de l’espérance is a vocal work in French and Hebrew for children’s choir and piano, by Graciane Finzi, based on a text by Rabbi Philippe Haddad. It was premiered in 2024 by the children of YWAM-Copernic’s Talmud Torah, directed by conductor Mélanie Levy-Thiébaut.
After studying at the conservatory in her native Casablanca (Morocco), Graciane Finzi entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, where she won numerous prizes (harmony, counterpoint, fugue and composition).
Appointed professor at the CNSM in Paris in 1979, she has composed some 200 works, some of them inspired by Judaism, including Kaddish, Crépuscule du Kol Nidré and Les enfants de l’espérance.
Her body of work, performed throughout the world, has won numerous awards: Prix Georges Enesco, Prix Sacem, Prix SACD, Prix Florent Schmitt…
In 2020, Graciane Finzi was named Chevalier des Arts et Lettres by the French Minister of Culture.
Philippe Haddad, graduate of the Séminaire Israélite de France, is rabbi of the rue Copernic synagogue of the Union libérale israélite de France (ULIF). He has been rabbi in Nîmes, Paris (rue Fondary) and Les Ulis in the Vallée de Chevreuse, as well as youth chaplain for the Consistoire de Paris. He has also taught at the Beth Halimoud of the Paris Community Center, at the MJLF, and now teaches at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris. The author of several books on Judaism and interfaith dialogue, he is a member of the J.E.M. (Judaism in Movement) movement.
