Eighteen years as a bridge to the Americas
The Barcelona Festival of Song comes of age and commemorates the 125th anniversary of the birth of one of the figures who inspired it, the soprano Conxita Badia.
To preserve and internationally promote the Latin American and Iberian art song repertoire in Catalan, Spanish, Portuguese and indigenous languages, the Barcelona Festival of Song presents an annual programme of concerts with lyrical singers from all over the world and also organises a Course on the History and Performance of the Latin American and Iberian Vocal Repertoire. This year it reaches its 18th edition, which will take place from 8 to 16 July, and one of the highlights will be the commemoration of the 125th anniversary of the birth of the soprano Conxita Badia, one of the inspirations behind the birth of the festival. On 9 July, they will screen the documentary Conxita Badia no existeix, directed by Eulàlia Domènec.
The Barcelona Festival of Song will kick off the day before, on Friday, 8 July, at the Biblioteca de Catalunya with a recital by soprano Patricia Caicedo and pianist Josep Buforn i Galan. They will introduce newly created works based on poems by the Catalan Carles Duarte i Montserrat that the festival has commissioned to composers Nico Gutiérrez (USA, 1993), Brian Field (USA, 1966), Dana Kaufman (USA, 1986), Anna Cazurra (Barcelona, 1966) and Patricia Caicedo (Colombia/Catalonia, 1969). The 2022 edition of the festival wants to celebrate the relationships forged with artists and researchers from the United States, so the concerts on the 15th and 16th will feature outstanding American lyric singers including Demaree Brown, Sangeetha Ekambaram, Amelia Gil-Figueroa, Anya Kosachevich, Abigail Mesel, Aleksandra Nowakowski, Zarah Rotshild, Allison Standford-Jones and Pablo Willey-Bustos.
The mission of building bridges also extends to Brazil, which each year presents a recital of art songs. This time, the tenor Lenine Santos, accompanied by the pianist Nikos Stavlas, will perform on 13 July. The next day, 14 July, the Turkish mezzo-soprano Lori Sen will perform a programme of Sephardic songs by Mediterranean composers, including the premiere of works by the Catalan Manuel García Morante.
Mundoarts has organised the festival in collaboration with the Residence for Researchers of the CSIC, the Biblioteca de Catalunya, the CIC Cultural Instritution, the Taller de Músics, the Reial Cercle Artístic and the Barcelona City Council.
You can find more information at this link.