The Musicales of Le Thoronet Abbey

Music and Le Thoronet Abbey go back a long way!

In the 1960s, the reputation of the abbey's acoustics led the Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Sites, which in 2000 became the Centre des Monuments Nationaux, responsible for opening the abbey to the public on behalf of the State and the Ministry of Culture, to receive numerous proposals for musical events. The famous music journalist Bernard Gavoty, who would later run a winery of the same name a stone's throw from the abbey, was authorised to organise a concert in the monument for Radio-Télévision Française in 1968. The Toulon Festival offered concerts there in 1973 and 74, and the Rencontres internationales de musique ancienne du Thoronet, under the direction of Dominique Vellard, took place there for thirty summers, until 2020.

In 2022, the Centre des monuments nationaux created The Musicales of Le Thoronet Abbey, a programme open to everyone and to all forms of classical music, from medieval to contemporary.