Everything ready at Gracia

Gràcia’s 2010 Festa Major or annual local festival (14 to 22 August) will be filling the district with concerts, workshops, exhibitions, sporting events and competitions, street parades, fire, giants, food, human towers and much more. There’ll be something for everyone. Prizes will be handed out for the best decorated streets on Tuesday 17 August.

Activities such as free beer tasting, children’s jigsaw-puzzle competition, exhibitions, story telling, gastronomy, courses and workshops for everyone, karaoke and street concerts to suit all tastes in the old town, from Habaneras to pop rock and disco music, as well as Celtic music, jazz, blues and rap, among other things.

Catalan tradition will be present as well, with bonfires, correfocs, traditional dances and parades, passacaglias, giants and human towers.

Barcelona in Shanghai: 1.5 million visitors

1.5 million people have already visited Barcelona’s Pavillion at Expo 2010 Shanghai.

Visitors can send messages of late friendship, through an e-book, to Joan Antoni Samaranch, the Honorary President of the International Olympic Committee and a key figure in securing both Barcelona’s and Beijing’s bids to host the Olympic Games. Among those who have already written a message we can find FC Barcelona players. Regarded as the person who held the most sway over the Olympic movement during the 20th century, Joan Antoni Samaranch was instrumental in securing Barcelona’s bid to host the 1992 Olympic Games, an event that would mark the city’s history for ever.

The Barcelona Pavillion is located in the area dedicated best urban practices from around the world. Next to it is a small square where an exact replica of Gaudí’s Dragon is on display.

Gracia Festival: Barcelona’s biggest and most colorful street party

Probably Barcelona’s biggest and most colourful street party, the Festa de Gràcia gets underway on August 15th and, during one week, seventeen streets will be decorated for the celebrations, on another year of this historical event. The first reference of this festivity dates back to 1817, when Gràcia was a small village, and not yet absorbed as a neighbourhood by Barcelona.

Gràcia was established in 1626, in the surroundings of a convent called Nostra Senyora de Gràcia (Our Lady of Grace). Gràcia was an independent municipality until it was annexed to Barcelona in 1897 along with other villages in the plain of Barcelona. The expansion of the Eixample  district in the 19th century eventually led to the northward expansion of Barcelona, connecting Gràcia to the growing metropolis.

Given the confirmation that some two thirds of the event’s visitors will be attending its morning, afternoon and early-evening activities, it will hold its main family-interest shows and cultural events at those times.

Still, the night party may stretch out to 2 am during the week and 3.30 am during the weekend, with concerts and music.

The first event of the Festival was the poster contest. Aina Cordoncillo, local illustrator, has been selected among 268 participants, and her poster will be the Official Poster of the Festival.

Courbet exhibition at Museu Diocesa

Paintings, drawings, engravings, photographs, documents and personal objects. In all, there are 100 items in “Courbet, between Nature and Culture”, the first major exhibition in Spain dedicated to the father of realism: Gustave Courbet.

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (1819 – 1877) was a French painter  who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social commentary in his work.

You can visit this exhibition at Museu Diocesa. It offers an all-round view of Courbet’s character, both as an artist and a democratic activist. It also highlights his relationship with Catalonia and Spain, and the influence his ideas had on other artists, like Picasso and Miró.

The exhibition features masterpieces such as “Le Chateau de Chillon” or “Portrait d’homme d’apres Velazquez” and many landscapes of Normandy.

Where: Museu Diocesa
Av. Catedral, 4 (next to the Cathedral)
When: Until September 5th, 2010.

Loop Barcelona. Videoart Festival

For eleven days, Barcelona will be the great international showcase of video art. Loop Barcelona - now in its 8th year - hosts its most extensive programme ever, featuring over one thousand videos in some hundred venues located throughout the city. 

In a restaurant, in a bookshop and even in a flat specially rented for the occasion, video art comes to the whole city for eleven days of Loop Barcelona, the most important international event in visual creation in existence.

Artists presenting works include Michael Snow, Perejaume, John Baldessari, Miquel Barceló, Isabel Coixet, Eulàlia Valldosera and Bill Viola.

Among the videoforums that have been prepared, you might find yourself inspired by a meeting with film director Hannah Collins, who has a joint project with Ferran Adrià, or by seeing what television arts presenter Jef Cornelis has to say.

You can also see Miquel Barceló’s live creation of a piece of art at the Museu de Ceràmica de Barcelona.

More inf@: Loop Barcelona

NNHotels sponsors Barcelona Asian Film Festival BAFF 2010

Between April 30th and May 9th will take place a new edition of the Barcelona Asian Film Festival of Barcelona, organized by 100.000 retinas, directed by Amaia Torrecilla and Carlos R. Ríos and sponsored by Núñez i Navarro Hotels. This year, BAAF 2010 presents a selection that increases the number of films screened - a total of 70 and six programs of short films - reinforcing some of its sections and giving a special boost to the animation.

In the Official Section will compete thirteen films, from Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam. The selection shows some essential films this year, the best that has given the Asian scene of the moment, such as Paju by Park Chan-ok; Weaving Girl by Wang Quanan; Like You Know It All by Hong Sang-soo or Aurora, by Adolfo Alix, who also presents Manila, together with Raya Martin.

This year innovation comes with BAFF Anime, a small selection of recent Japanese animation production which includes three world premieres in Spain: Redline, One Piece Film: Strong World and Eureka Seven Movie 2009. BAFF Anime also features one of the best animated films of recent times, Summer Wars by Mamoru Hosoda, best animation film on Sitges Festival 2009.

Roxy Music at Sonar Barcelona

British band Roxy Music will be performing at the next Sonar, thirty years after they last played in the city. Other groups joining the line-up are New Young Pony Club, Cabo San Roque and Aufgang. Find your hotel in Barcelona.
 

Dance pioneers with the song “Angel Eyes”, they made synthesisers fashionable, were the precursors of punk and new wave and the standard-bearers of glamour on stage. Roxy Music is a band ahead of their time, which is why they are going to play at Sonar.

Sonar, the advanced music and multimedia art festival, takes place in Barcelona every year during three days in June. Sonar’s diverse artistic offer splits between the Sonar by Day activities and Sonar by Night, together with some simultaneous gigs like the performances at L’Auditori.

Together with Roxy Music, Sonar 2010 will also feature The Chemical Brothers, Delorean or The Pinker Tones among others.

Núñez i Navarro Hotels offers you nine hotels in Barcelona, centrally located, next to Sonar by Day venues and well connected to Sonar by Night premises.

More inf@: Sonar 2010 website

Don’t shoot the pianist

The Maria Canals International Music Competition of Barcelona was founded in 1954 by the pianist Maria Canals and her husband, the writer Rossend Llates. This Competition has achieved international prestige since it was accepted by the World Federation of International Music Competitions in 1958.

It is held at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, being endorsed by the World Federation of Music Competitions for the organization of the branches of piano, violin, singing, cello, chamber music, guitar, percussion and flute. Since 1954, the Competition has held over 110 branches, with over 7.000 participants from 100 countries and 180 jury members from all over the world.

The 56th Barcelona Maria Canals International Music Competition will bring together 91 pianists from 26 countries between 13 and 26 March. At the same time, the Off-Competition will be taking piano music to the public.

Maria Canals Competition wants to take advantage of the presence of so many prestigious pianists in the city to take piano music out to the public. More than fifty pianos will be spread around the city so everyone who wants to can play the piano in some very unusual places.

Green spaces, squares and streets will provide the setting for concerts aimed at everyone, children and adults, professionals and amateurs, with grand pianos installed so the participants in the competition can take their art to every corner of the city. Rambla del Raval, Plaça de Sarrià, Can Brians prison and the Line 2 metro station lobby in Plaça de la Universitat are some of the improvised “concert halls” for these young artists.

Tradicionarius: International Folk Festival

The Tradicionàrius International Folk Festival takes place for the 23rd time, featuring nearly 50 artists, seven album presentations and four new shows that will fill the CAT stage with folk songs and rhythms while including other city venues.

Once again Tradicionàrius wants to make local traditional music and culture more accessible to city residents, without abandoning its aim to evolve and expand. So, until 26 March, Barcelona will be moving to the rhythm of folk.

More inf@: Tradicionarius Website

Global Sports Forum Barcelona

How does sport influence society? Is it an economic or political driving force? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in Barcelona between 8 and 10 March, at the second Global Sports Forum, a discussion platform that will turn Barcelona into a sports capital.

Over the three days close to sixty specialists and representatives from the world of sport, hailing from more than fifteen countries, will be sharing their experiences, to reach the best conclusions for setting up new sporting projects during the year. This year the organisers have decided to reduce the number of speakers, which last year stood at around a hundred and sixty, to address the issues in greater depth and rigour.

This big international debate will centre on eight issues structure along four general areas: new technologies, large sporting events, sustainability and youth in sport.

Participants will analyse the relationship between sport and education; philanthropy and co-operation; culture and creativity; health; geopolitics; the sports industry and large sporting events. All delivered through a series of lectures and small work groups.

A new feature this year is the creation of the Global Sports Forum Barcelona Trophies, an award for the best sports initiatives of the year. The aim of the awards is to highlight those projects that best illustrate the eight themes addressed at the conference.

Global Sports Forum Barcelona website  |  NN Hotels

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