'Mar de mars': the great challenge of Cor Canta

BarcelonaThe enthusiasm was as great as the vertigo before the challenge. Six months ago, when they had almost everything tied up, Sigfrid Quer and Joan Manel Coco explained to ARA the new adventure of the Cor Canta Foundation: Sea of ​​seasThe symphonic choral performance premieres on Sunday, March 15th at L'Auditori in Barcelona (12 pm) and will also be performed on March 18th in Valls and on April 17th in Girona Cathedral. The enthusiasm is understandable, both for its conceptual scope and the artistic talent involved: the premiere of three commissioned works by composers Feliu Gasull, Ferran Cruixent, and Anna Campmany; the participation of the Terrassa 48 Chamber Orchestra; soloists such as tenor Roger Padullés, baritone Germán de la Riva, and soprano Irene Mas; and Àngels Gonyalons as a reciter; the batons of Elisenda Carrasco, Jordi Lluch, and Eva Martínez; and the poetic material of authors such as Manuel Forcano, Joan Vinyoli, Jacint Verdaguer, and Joan Maragall. And, of course, the 120 singers of the Cor Canta choir. "It's the most ambitious project we've undertaken in eight years," Quer notes a few days before the premiere.

The Cor Canta choir has always promoted new creations. In fact, it has premiered around twenty works, such as the suite for heart and orchestra by The Lost Cat (Arnau Tordera's opera with a libretto by Victoria Szpunberg), which he presented last year at L'AuditoriThis time he goes further and proposes "a journey by sea not as a landscape, but as a symbolic space of life, border and memory." Sea of ​​seasMusic and poetry are not immune to the open wounds of the Mediterranean, mare nostrum and mother deadIt is not surprising, then, that Open Arms is collaborating on the project: its founder, Oscar Camps, has published a video on Instagram in which he recites precisely... Mother dead, one of Forcano's poems.

The awareness of all the meanings that fill the Mediterranean resonates in the three premiere works, linking the entire production. It will all begin with Àngels Gonyalons embodying the goddess Thalassa, and the journey will unfold in three movements that address the relationship with the sea, individual and collective longings, innocent gazes, laments, and restorative intentions to soothe the wounds of the sea. Each part will feature a movement from Sea views (1931), by Eduard Toldrà (views inspired by poems by Joan Maragall), and one of the new works: Mabre, by Feliu Gasull (with poems by Vinyoli and Verdaguer); Our Mother, by Ferran Cruixent (with the homonymous poem by Forcano), and Mother deadby Anna Campmany (also with verses by Forcano). All under the stage direction of Laura Domènech and Jofre Bardolet.

The origin of Sea of ​​seas It arose from a conversation with the composer Marc Migó, a regular collaborator of Cor Canta. The poetry collection The sea in the gazeThe publication by the European Institute of the Mediterranean sealed the deal. They then contacted Forcano, and enthusiasm and determination took over. From there, each composer got to work. Feliu Gasull found the inspiration to compose MabreDown below, heart and orchestra, "swimming with goggles and snorkel in the bay of Montjoi." "It's one of the things I love most in life: observing the seaweed, the crabs, the octopuses, the rocks, the fish... swimming and making curves through the water. Of all the fish I see, there are some very special ones that are always curiously exploring the bottom and they shine, the gilthead seabream," he says. Ferran Cruixent has composed Our Mother For tenor, heart, and orchestra, in keeping with the tone of Forcano's poem-prayer, which denounces "the massive dumping of waste" in the Mediterranean. The song of whales, an invocation to the Vedic divinity of the celestial waters, and a finale with Gregorian chant permeate Cruixent's work.

Finally, Anna Campmany sets to music Mother dead“I’ve never felt such a responsibility when composing as I have when tackling this theme: all the people who die at sea searching for a better life. I composed it from the heart,” says Campmany. The melody from which the composition springs has a long history. “When I was 15, I learned that one of the people I loved most had died. The family started the paperwork, and I was left alone, unable to cope with the emptiness. I sat down at the piano, and a melody flowed. These are very special notes for me, notes that have always been with me, but I’ve never shared them before.”