School dropouts and academic failure affects nearly two million young people in France and more than one child in every five is living in poverty. Despite concerted efforts, social determinism remains a reality: young people from modest environments are 2.5 times less likely to obtain a Bac+2 tertiary degree than the children of executives and intermediary professions and nearly 700 000 young people follow less ambitious training paths (professional orientations).

The pedagogical project “Hip Baroque Choc” led by the orchestra Le Concert de la Loge has taken on the ambitious challenge of federating high school students in professional or technological training courses and professional artists, around an art project combining interventions in schools and the creation of a show, thus offering a powerful encounter between two very different worlds.

 

This initiative invites vulnerable youth, distanced from an artistic environment that they believe to be inaccessible, to open up to art by discovering their potential within a creative process, a vector for cultural exchange, cooperation, sharing, but also the showcasing of professional and technological sectors that are very often denigrated.

 

Initiated in 2017 and deployed within eleven schools, the project  “Hip
Baroque Choc” has so far affected over 7 000 students, associated 50 teachers, and represented nearly 900 hours of interventions. 100% of the students involved in the project have followed their classes regularly, whereas the professional stream has a rate of absenteeism two to three times higher than conventional high schools.

The 2021–2022 edition of Hip Baroque Choc combines six professional high schools in Ile-de-France, in partnership with the Académies of Créteil, Paris, and Versailles and mobilises artistic professionals (dancers, musicians, stage managers, actors, musical directors, etc.) for a public comprising 1 500 high school students, 120 of whom directly participate in the creation of a show in May 2022.