There were smiles among the Dutch audience leaving the century-old Concertgebouw concert hall on Friday night. The hall, which looms large over Amsterdam's great museums, the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum, opened in 1888 and is considered one of the finest in the world, especially for its acoustics. Gustav Mahler, although he disliked Amsterdam, considered it his second musical home. On Friday, Catalan talent from both the last and present centuries could be heard. The 101 musicians of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ludovic Morlot, performed Maurice Ravel (Ziburu, 1875 - Paris, 1937) and George Gershwin (New York, 1898 - Los Angeles, 1937), but also Eduard Tolrà (Vila) Barcelona, 1962), Pau Casals (Vendrell 1876 - Puerto Rico, 1973) and José Río-Pareja (Barcelona, 1973).

There are friendships that endure beyond one's own life and impact future generations. This is the case of Conxita Badia and Pau Casals, two musicians and friends whose respective careers were cut short by the Civil War. This year, the fiftieth anniversary of their death, we celebrate the Year of Conxita Badia with a series of events that aim to vindicate the figure –not sufficiently known– of one of the best Catalan sopranos of the 20th century.