On October 6, 7 and 8, Raymat Castle, in the Segrià region, will host the Raimat Arts Festival, organized by the Raimat Lleida Community Foundation, for the second consecutive year. It is an event that fuses music, art, gastronomy and wine, also promoting projects with a triple impact: social, economic and environmental.
The festival organizers have developed a management model to minimize environmental impact and promote sustainability, promoting biodiversity and the ecosystem of the territory. The first edition was intended to provide a little help to alleviate the agricultural crisis, with projects such as training for tractor drivers.
“This year we claim the rational use of water, giving the total benefits of the festival to projects of entities that aim to improve water management to alleviate the water crisis and offset the carbon footprint” explained Elena de Carandini, head of the castle and president of the foundation. From the organization, they present this initiative as a territorial transformation tool that “is positive both for Lleida and for the environment”.
The first edition of the festival, held last year, was born twinned with the Napa Valley Festival, held every summer since 2006 in California, and has become a strategic partner of the event organized by the foundation. This year the Raimat Arts Festival (RAF) has presented its twinning with La Rioja Festival, a project to benefit the Association El Legado de la Música sin Fronteras and which provides sustainability to an educational-musical project in the region.
In this line, there will be a wide artistic offer during the three days of the festival, among the most relevant activities, the public will be able to enjoy a repertoire of classical music performed by internationally acclaimed artists such as the guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas, the soprano Raquel Lojendio, the pianist and composer Albert Guinovart and the harpist from ilerdense Berta Puigdemasa.
“Through culture and art, we can promote the territory economically and attract people from all over the world to visit Lleida, learn about its heritage, landscapes and traditions”, de Carandini highlighted. Likewise, the festival brings together the most important chefs from Lleida, who, through KM0 products, will make the ‘Taste of Lleida’, a replica of the ‘Taste of Napa’ that takes place at the American festival”.
In this way, some twenty producers from the province, such as Alemany or Aitona Gourmet, will have the opportunity to show off and display their product. “The fact of twinning is a useful way of taking our culture outside the territory”, has influenced the president of the Foundation, since last year the ilerdense products presented in the first edition of the RAF could be tested at the Napa Valley Festival in a stand of the Catalan Tourism Agency”.
With a view to the coming years and with the forecast of organizing more editions, they have a firm intention of turning the water and carbon footprint into Net Positive, reducing 50% of all established indicators and expanding social markers.
Tickets from €15 at Entradas de Vanguardia
