Divertimento + Q&A with Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar and Zahia Ziouani

Music is her life which she shares with her entire family including her twin sister Ferrouma. Yet, in 1995, all odds seem to be stacked against her. She’s a woman, the daughter of Algerian immigrants and comes from a working-class background.

None of that plays well at her stuffy Parisian conservatory, or at the competitions she embarks upon. Yet, in her drive to make symphonic music accessible to all, she somehow creates the culturally-diverse Divertimento orchestra, based in her own Parisian immigrant neighbourhood.The real-life Zahia continues to conduct that orchestra to this day.