Les Djinns (choir)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Les Djinns" choir – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Les Djinns were a French choir with a distinctive singing style, composed of sixty girls^[1] between the ages of nine and eighteen years, conducted by Paul Bonneau. In 1959, the French government organized a 'Master School' for the instruction of girls in musical subjects in order to ensure a supply of performance talent for the country's radio and television industry. The Master School set a course of study where the girls followed a curriculum of standard academic subjects in the morning hours, then musical courses in the afternoons consisting of scales, vocal techniques, harmony and choral vocalizing. Upon graduation, each girl was accepted into Les Djinns.

Within six weeks of the group's founding, Les Djinns were awarded the Gran Prix of the Academy of Records in France, and their popularity began to proliferate with stage appearances in France and tours in other European countries. Eventually, a total of 88 tunes were recorded, including a Christmas album and an album of American favorites sung in French, and released on the ABC-Paramount label. One Les Djinns single recording, "Marie Marie" (1960), made it onto the Top 100 list.

Les Djinns never toured the United States, but two separate filmed sequences were shown within two separate Sunday-evening Ed Sullivan variety shows.