Madrid, September 22, 2020.- A new Chamber Music Series in the World Heritage Cities will begin next October, as confirmed today by the Founding President of the Reina Sofía School of Music, Paloma O’Shea, and the President of the World Heritage Cities Group and Mayor of Ibiza, Rafael Ruiz, after signing the collaboration agreement, under which 15 free concerts will be held between October and December, which will take place in unique spaces in 15 Spanish cities. Carlos García Carbayo, President of the Education, Culture and Sports Commission of the Group and Mayor of Salamanca, also participated in the signing ceremony.
This series, planned for the spring of 2020, was postponed as a result of the measures adopted to curb the covid-19 pandemic. This new edition continues the line initiated in 2014 for the programming of high-quality concerts by young talents by the Reina Sofía School of Music, within the framework of the cultural projects that the Group of World Heritage Cities of Spain has been developing, through its Education, Culture and Sports Commission.
As Paloma O’Shea highlighted during the signing of the renewal, “music and culture are a great factor of coexistence. A concert is a celebration of empathy in which performers, composers and the public share very intense emotions. Live music fosters social cohesion which, in these times of crisis, is more necessary than ever. It is a satisfaction to know that the World Heritage Cities Group shares this vision and gives culture the priority it deserves.”
The president of the Group of World Heritage Cities of Spain, Rafael Ruiz, highlighted that “in a year as complicated as this, the easiest thing for either of the two entities would have been to suspend the agreement and leave it for the next edition, but I believe that if there was one thing that both organizations were clear about, it is that culture, precisely now, needs the effort and affection of everyone and that, therefore, everything possible had to be done so that the concert series could continue. This cooperation between the two entities began in 2014 and since then many young talents have been able to perform in our cities, all of them from the Reina Sofía School of Music, and for this I thank the enormous work that is being done to make the concert series a reality.”
The VII series “Chamber Music in the World Heritage Cities of Spain” will bring to the public, free of charge, a selection of the best chamber music, to historical, civil and religious spaces, of the 15 Spanish cities included in the World Heritage List of UNESCO, which will serve as exceptional settings for the celebration of these concerts. The performances, which will take place between October and December, will be given by the chamber groups of the Reina Sofía School of Music, considered one of the most prestigious centers of higher musical education in the world.
The concerts of the series, which in 2019 were enjoyed by nearly 4,500 people, will be developed following the security and hygiene protocols established in each autonomous community and city.
This year the spaces selected to host the series are: the Church of Santo Domingo Dalt Vila in Ibiza, the San Francisco Auditorium in Ávila, the Church of San Nicolás in Segovia, the Co-cathedral of Santa María in Mérida, the Sala Orive (Orive Palace) in Córdoba, the Church of San Pedro Mártir in Toledo, the Convent of Los Dominicos in Salamanca, the Paraninfo of the University in Santiago de Compostela, the assembly hall of the Tatiana Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno Foundation “Palacio de los Golfines de Abajo” in Cáceres, the Church of San Andrés in Cuenca, the Auditorium of the Tarraconense Workers’ Cooperative in Tarragona, the Convent of Santo Domingo de Guzmán in San Cristóbal de La Laguna (Sta. Cruz de Tenerife), the Church of San Pablo in Baeza and the Minor Basilica of Santa María de los Reales Alcázares in Úbeda. The location of Alcalá de Henares is yet to be determined.
For the first time, coinciding in time, the performances in Baeza and Úbeda will be within the program of the XXIV Early Music Festival of Úbeda and Baeza on December 5 and 6.
You can consult the program of the complete series here.
