Spring begins, nature prepares to offer its best colors, flavors and smells. The melodies of the birds sound among the branches of the trees. The cycle of life is waiting for the arrival of heat. But what would happen if this process of nature were reversed?
The Espurnes Barroques festival puts in solfa, in its sixth edition, the tour of nature in reverse. During four weekends they will represent from the fire of a fire, the wood, the sprouting and the germination, that of a new orchestra, the Miracle, until reaching the origin of nature, the seed.
Naturalesa en dansa is the title that hosts the four weekends of the festival, from May 12 to June 11, where more than a hundred concerts will commemorate the fires in Central Catalonia in 1998, giving life to the Suites orchestral by J.S. Bach together with proposals for baroque, classical, contemporary and flamenco dance, which will gradually disappear as the cycle progresses.
The festival features the premiere of the Miracle Orchestra that will take place on the third weekend, dedicated to the germination of the sprout. “Assembling an orchestra requires a lot of work before playing the first note,” says the band’s director, Juan de la Rubia. “It is the result of a lot of work, persistence and organization. And even more so when in Catalonia there are already other well-established Baroque ensembles”.
Twenty intergenerational musicians, both foreign and local, will make their debut on Saturday June 3 at the Santuari del Miracle, giving life to different styles of European Baroque, including J.S. Bach, A. Vivaldi, or G.F. Handel. “We want to show our versatility to publicize everything we can do and will do over the next few years,” Rubia details.
During their debut they will also have the collaboration of the soprano Martra Mathéu and the artist Marta Ricart, who will plastically illustrate the project with their work El so als ulls.
On the other hand, the festival offers a gastronomic proposal with local products that illustrate each show. This year, just as the Barrika beer debuted in the previous edition, surprises with the Bassadònia infusion and l’Essència Espurnes, the festival’s own smell, which will convey the essence of the forest and undergrowth inside the churches.
Espurnes Barroques was born in 2018 among the memories of a central Catalonia set on fire in 1998. This binomial between nature and dance, between baroque and minimalism, surprises with an “pedagogical and social action proposal for the regions that host the festival”, details the director of the Music Area of ??the Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises, Xavier Cester, during the presentation of the festival.
Despite its youth, the Espurnes Barroques has become firmly rooted in the Catalan lands and this year germinates with a musical, artistic and gastronomic fusion, touring 24 municipalities in the Solsonès, Bages, Segarra and L’Anoia regions, which once They were once engulfed in flames but have preserved a sculptural and architectural heritage from the Baroque period.
Likewise, this 2023 also commemorates four centuries after the death of the rector of Vallfogona, Francesc Vicent García, a municipality that is also added to the list along with five others: Odèn, Navàs, El Pont de Vilomara, Els Prats de Rei and Sant Ramon.
