These days, contemporary musicians fuse chanson with everything from rock, rap and reggae to electro beats. And on Sunday 21st June music fans around the world will hear just how far the genre has evolved over the past five decades. Chanson is to be given a place of honour at this year's 'Fête de la Musique' and Bron, a small town outside Lyon, is putting on one of the Fête's most original 'chanson' tributes. The local community centre, "La maison de quartier des Essarts", has invited Aurélien Kairo to take to the stage and perform hip-hop versions of Jacques Brel classics. Meanwhile, the tiny village of Ménestrau en Villette, near Orléans, is expecting a record turn-out this year. The local choir, "La chorale Ménestrallia", is to be boosted by the arrival of two major French chanson stars: Jean-Jacques Goldman and William Scheller!

A number of prestigious Parisian music venues will also be celebrating 'chanson' this year. The Rue des Lombards, a street normally renowned for its jazz clubs, will be paying tribute to three legendary 'chanson' figures: Serge Gainsbourg (at Le Sunset), Claude Nougaro (at Le Baiser Salé) and Boris Vian (at Le Sunside.) Meanwhile, over in the Palais Royal gardens, a special 'chanson' concert bridges the generation gap, bringing together on stage youthful fifty-something Daniel Darc and young up-and-coming talents Yodelice and Carmen Maria Vega.

The Alliance Française joins in the Fête

French chanson is to be celebrated on all five continents this year thanks to the global network of the Alliances françaises. In the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, students will be putting an original spin on French chanson favourites with a dance troupe and a DJ. Meanwhile, over in the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik, the Café Rosenberg will be staging its own chanson tribute with eight bands from very different musical domains playing their own different covers of a Serge Gainsbourg song.

While Café Rosenberg stages its battle of the bands, a culture shock of a different kind will be taking place in Oujda, Morocco, as local music stars Friha Abdelkader, Kran and Mohcine perform their own takes on chanson classics by Brel and Barbara. On 21st June Seoul will be staging the final of its 15th Francophone Chanson Contest, ten candidates taking to the stage to try and impress the judges with covers of hits by the likes of Sheila, Patricia Kaas and Renan Luce.

French artists around the globe

A number of contemporary Francophone music stars will travel far and wide this year to join in the 'Fête de la Musique' fun. Davy Sicard from Reunion Island will be promoting his modern maloya sound at "Le Ciné Lumière" in London while Yannick Noah and Coralie Clément take to Central Park Summer Stage in New York. Modern French troubadour Tété will be heading off to San José, California, to see whether his soulful blend of blues, funk and pop goes down as well with the locals as it does back home. And Yann Tiersen (of "Amélie" soundtrack fame) will be flying out to perform in Wuhan, China, with the Nantes-based trio Pony Pony Run Run. Australia, joining in the 'Fête de la musique' for the second time this year, will be graced by the presence of French singer-pianist-guitarist Martin Rappeneau in Brisbane.

All these stars will be performing free, of course, but the real draw of the 'Fête de la musique' is that it gives amateur musicians the chance to step out of their usual role of spectators and join their idols up on stage. To help all wannabe musicians taking to the streets on 21st June, the website fetedelamusique.culture.fr has posted the scores of eight chanson classics from the past fifty years including Le Sud, Le Tourbillon de la vie and La Femme chocolat. And this year there's even a special section on how to make your own instruments, so there's no excuse for not making your own music wherever you are on Sunday night!