The Chime rings again at the Palace

The new edition of the Barcelona International Carillon Festival returns to the Palau de la Generalitat with the world's best carillonneurs during the last two weekends of July. The program, with six concerts, concludes with Anna Maria Reverté, the carillonneur of the Palau. The festival will pay tribute to universal Catalans such as Antoni Gaudí and Pau Casals on the occasion of their 100th and 150th commemorative years, respectively.

The Pati dels Tarongers and the Gothic Gallery of the Palau de la Generalitat will be the setting for the festival, open to all citizens and which kicks off next Friday, July 17, with a first concert by the Japanese artist based in Toronto, Naoko Tsujita. From Canada to Japan, passing through Barcelona is a multicultural musical journey that brings together Canadian, romantic works, music from films and Japanese anime and pieces dedicated to Gaudí. Tsujita is a master of music, percussionist, carillonneur, and composer, with an internationally recognized career spanning Europe, North America, and Asia.

Saturday, July 18, will be the turn of the Belgian carillonneur Lorenz Meulebroek with A la festa! The repertoire, typical of a festive Flemish city, will fill the concert with joy with pasodobles that make the giants dance and with a tribute to Pau Casals and the Cant dels ocells, which he popularized internationally. Meulebroek has been the municipal carillonneur of the city of Dendermonde since 2015.

The Polish Monika Kazmierczak will open a new concert on Sunday –Very innovative– with original Polish and Lithuanian music for carillon. Kazmierczak is the municipal carillonist of Gdańsk and founder and director of the Carillon Festival in this town, and has been awarded several international prizes.

The sound of bells will return next weekend, on Friday, July 24, with Improvising, from Mozart to Brahms, by the carillonist Rien Donkersloot from the Netherlands. Graduated with summa cum laude, Donkersloot specializes in improvisations and will perform an improvisation on a traditional Catalan song, in addition to interpreting Hungarian rhapsodies. Rien Donkersloot has won several prizes in organ and carillon competitions in the Netherlands and abroad.

Bell music, classical and chansonnières, with the carillonist Charles Dairay from France, will be Saturday's concert. Dairay will review original pieces for carillon, great classics, and popular French songs. He is the principal carillonist of the Lyon City Hall (France); he is also carillonist in Deinze (Belgium), Orchies (France), and Le Quesnoy (France); and co-carillonist in Bergen (Belgium) and Saint-Amand-les-Eaux (France).

Catalan music

Catalan music, with Anna Maria Reverté, the Palace's carillonist, will close the festival on Sunday. Reverté will review Catalan music with pieces by Pau Casals, Frederic Mompou, Ferran Sors, Miquel Llobet, and Reverté herself, and will conclude the concert with an original piece for carillon by Teresa Borràs, El Pati dels Tarongers, a sardana dedicated to the carillonist M. Dolors Coll, awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi in 2000 for her entire carillonist work in our country and the international diffusion of Catalan culture. This sardana will mark the end of this new International Carillon Festival of Barcelona in the Pati dels Tarongers.

The current carillon of the Palau de la Generalitat has 49 bronze bells and a total weight of 4,898 kilograms, with a bass bell weighing 905 kg of bronze that bears the name Catalunya. This number of bells, covering a tonal range of four chromatic octaves, gives it the status of a concert carillon. The Palace Carillon was inaugurated in December 1976 under the initiative of carillonist M. Dolors Coll. This carillon replaced the small "carillon" from 1927, which was built in the Netherlands by Petit & Fritsen and restored in December 1991. In October 2015, Eijsbouts (Petit & Fritsen) renovated its keyboards.

To access the carillon concerts, prior registration is mandatory for each attendee through a form or via the 012 service.