In the coming months, and especially throughout the summer and until the end of October, much of Barcelona’s cultural, artistic, sporting, gastronomic, scientific and recreational programming will bear the stamp of the 37th edition of the America’s Cup of sailing The one that is one of the most followed sports competitions in the world, but at the same time an event still little known to the people of Barcelona, ??will permeate everything. In an effort to familiarize citizens with sailing, in general, and with this test, in particular, to strengthen the relationship of the Catalan capital with the sea and to remove the America’s Cup from the label of elitist that some attribute, Barcelona has prepared a Cultural Regatta with more than 200 activities for all audiences and with a common denominator, its popular and free character.
“The Cultural Regatta expresses the values ??of the city and we do it with the city; it’s a way of doing things in Barcelona”, affirmed yesterday, as a declaration of principle, the mayor Jaume Collboni at the presentation of the program of activities, which was at the Joan Miró Foundation and in which several participated representatives of the sixty organizations that promote and organize the activities linked to a cycle that vaguely recalls the Cultural Olympiad parallel to the 1992 Games. With the America’s Cup, added the mayor, Barcelona is vindicating itself as a “sea city”.
“One hundred percent Barcelona”. This is how Collboni defined this Cultural Regatta in which artists and local cultural institutions and the city’s facilities will play a very relevant role. Even the concessions at the big show will have this popular component that clothes the entire program. This is the case of the concerts that two of the main directors of the music scene of the moment, Gustavo Dudamel and Ludovic Morlot, will offer on Sant Sebastià beach, in Barceloneta, by Barcelona Obertura, the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the Palau of Music and the Auditorium. Fundació La Caixa collaborates in the concert directed by Dudamel on July 12, in which the Liceu Symphony Choir and Orchestra will perform a very popular repertoire with some of the soundtracks of great movie hits such as Superman, Jurassic Park , E.T., Star Wars or Harry Potter.
Earlier, on July 11, under the baton of Ludovic Morlot, the Barcelona and National Symphony Orchestra of Catalonia and the Orfeó Català will review themes that have acquired the category of anthems. A special moment of the evening will be the interpretation of Barcelona, ??the pre-Olympic song immortalized by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé, this time with the voices of soprano Serena Sáenz and tenor Freddie de Tommaso.
What will be the most crowded event of the Cultural Regatta, in the same way as the sports competition, can be followed from the city’s beaches. It is the ceremony that will be held on October 10, on the eve of the Match Race Final (the definitive dispute for the coveted One Hundred Guineas Cup), a show that is announced as “shocking and visual, open and free”, offered in the city by the Fundació Barcelona Capital Nàutica. “Barcelonians will remember it for years and it will dazzle the whole world”, assured Mayor Collboni. The details of this ceremony were not revealed yesterday, although, as reported by La Vanguardia on January 7, in addition to the shocking choreographies of drones over the sky of Barcelona, ??there will also be musical numbers starring, among others , by the Catalan singers Bad Gyal and Sílvia Pérez Cruz.
This opening to the general public is one of the signs of identity that the city of Barcelona wants to stamp on the 37th Copa de l’América, a stamp that previous editions did not have. This distinctive feature will also be noticed in the activities scheduled at Moll de la Fusta, where the most democratic village seen to date in the history of this great sporting event will be installed. It will open on August 22 and will be in service until the end of the regattas, at the end of October.
In the same way that it has accelerated a series of projects that the Port of Barcelona had in its portfolio for some time, the America’s Cup is being the pretext to activate the profound transformation of the Olympic Port, where the participating teams will have their bases in competitions for female and youth teams.
In the coming months, taking advantage of the preparations for the nautical test, the modernized Port Olímpic will be presented to society as a new public space. Its facilities will become a new stage for the decentralized Mercè festivities in September. It will host part of the shows of the established Mercè Arts festival. Likewise, and also during Barcelona’s main festival, other points along the city’s coast will be included in this display of performing arts.
In a city that is a gastronomic reference, and that has on its tablecloths, the knife and fork one of its new niches for attracting tourists, restaurants and markets will also follow the footsteps of the America’s Cup in sailing. A festival that attracts thousands of Barcelona residents and visitors every year, Tast a la Rambla, moved to Plaça Catalunya due to the works on the central promenade, will wear the colors of the twelve countries represented in the cup (in its senior, female versions and youth) to offer a select sample of each from June 6 to 9. On the other hand, the Tasta’M gastronomic cycle, organized by the Municipal Market Institute and the Federation of Municipal Markets, will visit different neighborhoods of Barcelona to present seafood products in the respective municipal markets.
One of the representations most genuinely linked to the practice of sports and recreational sailing and with a more identity character will also have a place in this great tailor’s drawer of activities that will be the Cultural Regatta. During the America’s Cup, you will be able to see the biggest Catalan roller skating regatta ever seen in the waters of Barcelona. In the same racing field as the fast AC75s, 300 of these modest light sailing boats will evolve at the same time, a kind of catamarans without jib, rudder, boom or sails that have fascinated the crews of the teams participating in the America’s Cup and the organizer of the test and director of the New Zealand squad, Grant Dalton.
For the municipal government chaired by Jaume Collboni, the America’s Cup and the associated Cultural Regatta represent a renewal of the public-private alliance that the local authorities have been so proud of for more than 30 years. “Only in Barcelona could we mobilize all the public and private entities and all the strength of the City Council and the city to build a cultural agenda around a world-class event”, said the mayor.
The success of the celebration of the America’s Cup will be measured by the degree of citizen involvement in the event and by Barcelona’s ability to take advantage of it and project itself to the world, as it has done so many other times . For this reason, beyond its unquestionable repercussion on the sporting plan, the Barcelona Capital Nàutica Foundation, with the City Council at the helm, is preparing an agenda of activities to publicize the America’s Cup among Barcelona residents and an opening ceremony to give it a presence at one of the international events that will mark this year’s agenda. The gala will be a show with light, drones and pyrotechnics and where music will play a leading role with names like Sílvia Pérez Cruz and Bad Gyal.
The opening ceremony, scheduled for the 10
