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"Compère Guilleri", "Une souris verte", "Malbrough s'en va-t'en guerre", "Gentil coquelicot" . . . These and so many other nursery rhymes are the first music that most French children grew up with and that they in turn will want to teach their children and grandchildren. The album Comptines: l'orchestre raconte revisits these traditional nursery rhymes in totally new and original orchestrations, conceived by the talented composer-conductor from Liège Jean-Pierre Haeck. Listeners to the programme, both children and adults, will be able to recognise the themes of well-known traditional nursery rhymes in the various pieces, but also some quotations from the symphonic repertory (excerpts from works by Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Smetana, Bizet et al have mischievously slipped into the disc!). For three of these nursery rhymes, the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège accompanies the children's voices of the Maîtrise de l'Opéra Royal de Wallonie. A 'karaoke' version is also offered at the end of the disc. Here is an interactive book-CD illustrated by the Belgian artist Marie Vanderbemden, new and totally original, in which every listener, children and grown-ups alike, can become a performer for the space of a few songs!