45 years of the Musicians Workshop

It's not too late to talk about it because what it is and what it represents is important: we're talking about the Taller de Músics, one of the most interesting and successful ventures in Barcelona's cultural life of recent decades. Specifically, the Taller de Músics has turned forty-five, and to celebrate, it has held a program of events that culminated last December, accompanied by the publication of a commemorative book that is a true gem, both in its production and content, as well as significant organizational changes.

To speak of the Taller de Músics is to speak of Lluís Cabrera, who has dedicated his life as founder, driving force, conspirator, president, and every other imaginable role to a project that is now universally applauded but which, at its inception, was met with incomprehension, indifference, and, at times, hostility. Now, Cabrera has stepped down as president (he assumes the honorary presidency), and the new president of the institution and higher school of musical studies is Joan Manuel Tresserras, who served as Minister of Culture and Media in the second tripartite government (an excellent minister, I believe it's now fair to say) and is one of its leading theorists. Several prominent figures have also joined the Taller de Músics board of trustees, including musicians closely associated with the institution such as Miguel Poveda, Juan Albert Amargós, and Santiago Auserón, who have also contributed material to the book.

The contribution of the Taller de Músics to Catalan culture is artistic, academic, and social. That what began as a modest, somewhat clandestine venue in the Raval district in the 1980s, playing flamenco, jazz, and fusion music, has become over time an internationally renowned higher education institution for musical studies, complementing and strengthening the fabric of music education in Catalonia, is a marvel built on music as a space for dialogue. It also reflects the capacity of Catalonia to be conducive to long and broad perspectives, a favorable place for pioneering spirits and advanced, free thought. This has always been the case and continues to be so: now that a few, on both sides, are spouting a string of nonsense around an idea devoid of any content or substance (the charnegos and the charneguismo), it is more than healthy to look to someone like Cabrera, who has long had his place in Catalonia lived and thought through. Cabrera is a son of Candel who has traveled the long road fromunderground and the resistance to academia and institutions, to getting lost in the vicious nights of the flamenco venues with the great Enrique Morente to celebrate four and a half decades of a Taller de Músics where figures such as Mayte Martín, Miguel Poveda (who has just celebrated the twentieth anniversary of his beautiful album of flamenco and Catalan poetry, have been trained, Thaw) or Rosalía. The Taller de Músics is now a beacon shining brightly in a dark age of intolerance, resentment, and festering hatred. May it continue for many more years, and may it continue to be a beacon of hope for the fascists and square-headed fools.