Jordi Savall will set the solar eclipse to music

BarcelonaThe solar eclipse that will occur in August provides the conceptual framework for the sixth edition of the Jordi Savall Festival, which will be held from August 10 to 16 in Santes Creus, Montblanc, Valls, and Alcover. There will even be a special concert to follow the eclipse on August 12 by Josep Maria Marí, which will take place in "a space yet to be revealed." "We will summon spectators to a location and take them where the concert will be held," informs the festival's general director, Martí Sancliment. "The eclipse prevents us from seeing an object because there is another object. The festival's objective is to illuminate what remains hidden, and to talk about what lies beyond eclipses," said Savall at a press conference at the Palau Moja in Barcelona. This is the light that guides the programming of an edition that includes concerts by the Quatuor Mosaïques, French cellist Christophe Coin, pianist Olga Pashtxenko, Belgian violinist Tcha Limberger (with the Budapest Gipsy Ensemble), and Senegalese singer and chorister Momi Maiga, among others, in addition to Jordi Savall's various ensembles.

"The festival wants to shed light on a moral and political eclipse, like the one that prevents many women from being what they should be," explains Savall regarding Dones d'Orient, a concert by Orpheus XXI with Iranian soloists. Other programs have a less metaphorical relationship with the sun, which is the image that Perejaume has also chosen for the festival poster. For example, the homage to Copernicus by Hespèrion XXI, which Savall himself will conduct on August 12. "Copernicus defended that the Earth was not the center of the Universe. An anti-dogmatic and revolutionary theory," he says. Juan Sebastián Elkano will also be remembered, the man who in the 16th century completed the circumnavigation of the world that had begun with Fernão de Magalhães and who proved that the Earth was spherical; this concert, on August 10, will be performed by the Euskal Barrokensemble conducted by Enrike Solinís.

Among the programs that Savall will conduct, highlights include the one to be performed by soprano Núria Rial and Les Musiciennes du Concert des Nations on August 11 (co-produced with the Peralada Festival), in which they will tackle arias and concertos from the Italian baroque; the one of Elizabethan music with soprano Elionor Martínez and countertenor William Shelton on August 15; and, above all, the one on August 16, dedicated to Felix Mendelssohn, with the overture The Hebrides, the Symphony No. 3, Scottish and the Symphony No. 4, Italian. Savall is an admirer and connoisseur of Mendelssohn, "one of the most important composers of romanticism" and whose legacy was violated by "the antisemitism of Richard Wagner". "He was overshadowed by racist fanaticism," recalls Savall.

Premiere of Bernat Vivancos

Among the novelties of the sixth Jordi Savall Festival there will be the premiere of a work by Bernat Vivancos in the concert of the Jove Capella Reial de Catalunya, within a program on "light and darkness" with works by Tomás Luis de Victoria and Cristóbal de Morales on August 14 at the Santes Creus monastery. On the same day in Valls there will be two proposals: for the first time, a family show ("Dones eclipsades, by Ensemble Das Kolorit) at l'Espai Robert Gerhard in Valls, and a four-hands concert between organists Montserrat Torrent and Juan de la Rubia.