The most extraordinary highlight of the Cobla Sant Jordi - Ciudad de Barcelona's new season will be their concert at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie on November 15th: a sold-out performance in the main hall. "It's a historic milestone in the world of copla," rightly insists Miquel Massana, principal conductor of the ensemble founded in 1983. The concert program, "a calling card" of what they want to "show the world," includes two sections of sardanas. In the first, the Cobla Sant Jordi will "trace the transformation of the sardana from its popular essence to its consolidation as concert music," featuring works by Enric Morera, Juli Garreta, Eduard Toldrà, Ricardo Lamote de Grignon, Marc Timón, and others. In the second, the aim is to connect different generations of composers who have contributed to enriching the repertoire, such as Juli Garreta, Joaquim Serra, Joan Albert Amargós, and Xavier Pagès-Corella. Material eloquent enough to showcase the expressiveness of the copla's sound. "We are reclaiming the copla as an instrument of contemporary creation," says Massana. The day before, there will be a popular sardana dance in the Elbphilharmonie square, led by choreographer Anna Romaní. Both activities are part of Focus Catalunya, a week in which the German venue, in collaboration with the Institut Ramon Llull, also presents concerts by Jordi Savall, Chicuelo & Marco Mezquida, the Barcelona Symphony and National Orchestra of Catalonia, Tarta Relena, the Chamber Choir of the Palau de la Música Catalana, and Sílvia.

In December I suggested that if they wanted to explain this country to someone who wanted to understand it, they should invite them to hear Roger Mas with the Cobla Sant Jordi at the Palau de la Música in February. The concert was held yesterday, with a full house right up to the last row of the amphitheatre, and ended with a great party, with both the spectators and the artists enjoying it. But this article is not intended to criticise the performance, among other reasons because the excellent aftertaste that Mas and the copla left us with a couple of months ago in Porrera is still just as valid, but rather it wants to return to the idea of understanding a country through the work of an artist.