De Cajón! Flamenco Festival in Barcelona

The “De Cajón!” festival hits Barcelona again, with a line-up to warm you to the rhythm of clapping palms. Offering a line-up that features not just household names from the Flamenco scene but also promising new talents, the Barcelona Flamenco Festival gets ready for its sixth year having consolidated its status as a regular feature with a distinctive personality.

Niña Pastori will officially open the festival with a special Christmas concert at the Palau de la Música, where you can treat yourself to a repertory of Flamenco Christmas carols specially adapted for the occasion and where the Cadiz-born cantaora or Flamenco singer will be accompanied by eight musicians and a dancer.

The Palau will also reverberate to Rosario Flores’s rumba power, Kiko Veneno’s Flamenco rock and, as a grand finale, the might of Estrella Morente.

The Auditori will be the setting for a truly special evening featuring Duquende, Parrita, Montse Cortés and various Chambao musicians to pay homage to José Ortega Heredia, aka Manzanita. Under the title of Con piel de manzana, the world of Flamenco will be paying tribute to one of most innovative figures in its history.

This year’s De cajón! is going in for local talent, with a line-up full of promising new talents from the Barcelona scene. Such is the case with Marujita, who will be presenting her second album, produced by Ricky Falkner, and the guitarist Juan Ramón Caro and the dancer Ana Morales, who will be performing at Luz de Gas.

New Music Season in Barcelona

The city’s new music season gets under way in September with a varied and attractive programme.

You could start by sampling the programme at the Palau de la Música, which has a “Mozart in jazz” concert on 1 September, with Llibert Fortuny on sax and Manel Camp on piano. Also awaiting you will be the Orquestra Simfònica del Vallès (18 September) and the guitarists Xavier Coll (8 and 17 September) and Pedro Javier González (24 September).

If you visit the Liceu between 4 and 7 September, you can enjoy an opera in four acts, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, with music by Christoph Willibald Gluck and a libretto by François Guillard. It opened in Paris in 1779. This is the second version of Iphigenie auf Tauris, which marked the end of the composer’s Paris period and is one of his truly brilliant operas.

On 27 and 30 September you will find Marc Piollet and Calixto Bieito directing the comic opera Carmen, with music by Georges Bizet, a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy and based on the novel by Proper Mérimée. It opened in Paris in 1875 and in Barcelona in 1881, coming to the Liceu in 1888.

As regards symphonies, the OBC will be at the Auditori (24-26 September), conducted by Pablo González and playing compositions by Ramon Humet, Debussy and Shostakhovich.

The Mas i Mas Festival in August

For eight years the Mas i Mas Festival has been adding rhythm to the warmest days of the year. This edition’s festival, which kicks off on 29 July with a performance by the Malian diva Rokia Traoré, has programmed over 160 concerts to suit all tastes with world music, flamenco, classical and electronica.

Among all that will be going on, one concert stands out, the Plaça Reial tribute to the city’s most iconic jazz club, the Jamboree, which is 50 this year. Musicians like Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald and Ornette Coleman have been here, so jazz will be the star of this free concert on Monday 30 August, starting at 6 pm.

The Big Acoustic Band, the best national jazz outfit, and WTF All Stars, the musicians that liven up the WTF Jam Sessions every Monday at the club, will have the job of bringing the Jamboree out into the light in Plaça Reial.

Appearing at the Mas i Mas Festival besides Rokia Traoré will be Flavio Rodríguez, Lucrecia and Sole Giménez, accompanied by the saxophonist Perico Sambeat. This last recital will close the festival on 1 September at the Palau de la Música.

The inclusion of the Palau de la Música as a festival stage is one of the new features of the eighth Mas i Mas Festival. There the chamber music room will hold three latin and jazz concerts a day.

In all the festival will have seven stages around the city. La Pedrera once again provides the stage for classical music, with three concerts a day, while flamenco will be based at the Tarantos, with six sessions a day, and electronica at the Moog. The Auditori will open the festival and there will also be concerts at Luz de Gas and the Jamboree.

All those people who say nothing happens in Barcelona in August have got it all wrong!

11th Gospel Festival of Catalonia

It promises to be spectacular with the best performances in contemporary gospel, to judge by the choice on offer at the Catalonia Gospel Festival. The South African choir Soweto, the American choirs Georgia, Amen and Black Heritage, plus the ‘lady of gospel’ and soloist Bridget A. Bazile from New Orleans, are just some of the acts.

In addition, the Barcelona Gospel Institute choir, with its 200 members, has shown we too have our own home-grown enthusiasts of this highly spiritual style of music. All these choirs will be filling Catalonia, throughout this month, with an authentic Afro-American spirit.

One of the voices you’ll be able to savour will be that of the classically trained Bridget A. Bazile, who hails from New Orleans and puts her unique voice at the service of an equally unique tradition.

On Thursday 17, at the Palau de la Música, you can treat yourself to the impressive music of the South African choir, Soweto. You’ll be amazed by their explosion of rhythm, colours, strength and vitality. You’ll have the opportunity to experience the gospel you’d expect of this music genre, the kind performed by choirs and with the force of a whole continent behind them.

You’ll find yourself carried away by the authentic African legacy of Black Heritage, who pay tribute to the Afro-American musical tradition, from its origins in the plantations of the Deep South to its urban variations.

Concert ‘Amen Gospel Choir + The Brotherhood Singers’ | Date: 12/12/2009
Place: Gran Teatre del Liceu

Concert ‘Soweto Gospel Choir’ | Date: 17/12/2009
Place: Palau de la Música Catalana

Concert ‘Bridget A. Bazile Singers i la Coral de l’Institut Gospel Barcelona | Date: 23/12/2009
Place: L’Auditori de Barcelona

Festival Website: www.theproject.es  | NN Hotels: www.nnhotels.com

Miles Davis at 41st Voll Damm Barcelona International Jazz Festival

The Barcelona International Jazz Festival will be paying homage to the album ‘Kind of Blue’, by the trumpet player and composer ‘Miles Davis’, considered the most important work in this musical style.

Released 50 years ago, the album is one of the great musical works of all time and is still a touchstone in Jazz today.

Also taking part in the festival will be Wayne Shorter, a member of the Miles Davis quintet during the 1960s, and Marcus Miller, who co-composed the legendary Tutu’ album with Miles, as well as great female singers like Cassandra Wilson and Concha Buika.

This time the festival, which will taking place from 18 October to 6 December, will be flooding the city with a record number of concerts – over 70 – and a stellar one to finish with at one of the most legendary halls in North American jazz, the New York Jazz Standard.

The concerts will be performed at fifteen different venues, including the Auditori, Luz de Gas, Jamboree, Palau de la Música and Harlem Jazz Club.

Source: www.bcn.es | www.nnhoteles.com