Live Music in Toulon

Few French cities outside Paris can claim a classical music festival running continuously since 1951, and Toulon is one of them. That festival, the Toulon and its Region Music Festival, sets the tone for a city where live music moves through an unusually varied set of stages: a 19th-century Neo-Baroque opera house, a 15th-century maritime fortress at Tour Royale, and the Zénith de Toulon, which scales up to 8,500 capacity for major touring acts. Jazz has its own firmly rooted place here, with the annual Jazz à Toulon festival having hosted over a thousand artists across more than four hundred concerts. The city has also produced significant figures including Gilbert Bécaud and Camélia Jordana, giving Toulon a credible claim to shaping French popular music as well as its more celebrated classical tradition.