A well-kept secret among music lovers, the Festival de la Haute Clarée was founded in 2014.

Each August, thanks to the support of the Deanery of Briançon, it takes place in the intimate setting of the magnificent churches of Névache, whose remarkable acoustics rival those of the world's finest concert halls—most notably the early sixteenth-century Church of Saint-Marcellin.

Independent and deliberately understated, the Festival welcomes some of the most distinguished and authentic artists on the international stage—musicians for whom music is not entertainment but a spiritual experience. Over the years, it has hosted an exceptional array of performers, including pianists Pascal Amoyel, Kit Armstrong, Iddo Bar-Shai, Christian Blackshaw, Chen Sa, Jean-Philippe Collard, Dang Thai Son, Shani Diluka, Christian Ihle Hadland, Sunwook Kim, David Lively, Alexander Melnikov, Dominique Merlet, Jean-Claude Pennetier, Francesco Piemontesi, Victoria Postnikova, Anne Queffélec, Ferenc Vizi, Zhang Haochen and Zhu Xiao-Mei, who founded the Festival ; baritone Alain Buet; clarinettist Pierre Génisson; the I Giardini Trio (Pauline Buet, Pierre Fouchenneret and David Violi); violinist Clara-Jumi Kang; cellist Emmanuelle Bertrand; the Tchalik Quartet; and many others.

The Festival is equally committed to introducing the outstanding musicians of the next generation. Last year, for example, it presented the Kazakh pianist Alim Beisembayev and the Chinese pianist Wang Zitong, only a few weeks before her triumphant success at the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw.