Cervera pays tribute to Juli Garreta and the most original classical music

CerveraThe historic Catalan composer Juli Garreta (Sant Feliu de Guíxols 1875-1925) and the pianist Carlos Marigó (Blanes, 1986) Despite the more than one hundred years that separate them, they have something in common. They are both part of the program of the fifteenth edition of the Cervera Easter Festival, a program that promotes and disseminates classical music made in Catalonia and kicks off on Thursday, April 10. Both, in obviously different ways, will be present at one of the festival's scheduled concerts because, in distant times, they have ended up breaking the mold, a rare trait in their musical genre. "We've scheduled them together because, at different times in the history of music, they stand out for their originality," explains festival director Jordi Armengol.

On Sunday the 13th, under the title Garreta and Marigó: Catalan music a century later, there will be, first, a tribute to the sardanist of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, of which this year the 150th anniversary of the birth is commemorated (and the centenary of his death). The Catalan Music Chamber Orchestra, with Marigó at the piano and conducted by Jofre Bardolet, will offer some of the pieces by Garreta, who mastered harmony, counterpoint, and instrumentation "without having studied anything." The second part of the concert will, in fact, be a premiere in which Marigó, trained at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, will perform two previously unreleased pieces, displaying his creative freedom. This concert will be one of the highlights of a festival that, as every year, is packed with offerings. More than a thousand minutes of music will be spread across fifteen concerts and distributed across six different venues in the capital of the Segarra region.

The Easter Festival will begin on Thursday the 10th with the traditional school concert by Aupa Strings, who will present the show Playlist. However, the festival will officially open on Saturday the 12th with the Voices and Children's Choir of Friends of the Union and the accompaniment of thirty students from the Cervera Conservatory. Before the opening, continuing with the events commemorating Garreta, the writer and audiovisual creator Jordi Lara will talk about the New useless clues about the Garreta case, in which he will praise "the originality and strength" with which his work was created.

The second week of programming will begin on Wednesday, April 16, with a tasting concert featuring Lluís Capdevila on piano and Miquel Àngel Cordero on double bass. Their music will be complemented by gastronomic tastings in dialogue with sommelier Jordi Martínez, paired with local wines.

The Chamber Choir of the Palau de la Música, with the program I sing of struggle… and love. Tribute to Joan Salvat-Papasseit, a theatrical concert under the suggestive title Garreta Enigma and the closing on April 19 with the Cobla Sant Jordi performing the program From Garreta's Modernism to 21st-century copla They will sign a program designed with a clearly educational purpose. "We take advantage of the annual commemorations to promote Catalan musical authors and works that, unfortunately, both our society and even our musicians are unaware of," explains the festival director.

This is the fifth edition with Jordi Armengol at the helm of the festival, and it marks the end of his contract and a period marked by the consolidation of the festival, declared of high cultural interest by the Generalitat (Catalan government). It is, in fact, the only one in which iconic indoor venues (the auditorium of the University of Cervera, the municipal auditorium, the Teatro de la Pasión, the Church of San Juan, the Regional Museum, and the Casa Sabater) are used to fully enjoy the music. made in Catalonia.