The desire of the Serra de Montsant natural park to reveal its most hidden and wild side multiplied by the sensitivity of a pianist connected to nature. Lídia Papió, musician and composer, dreamed some time ago of taking her grand piano to the middle of a forest or next to a cliff to give her “musical baths” to an audience eager to live new experiences
The formula, successfully tested in natural enclaves such as Mussara, next to the Prades Mountains (Baix Camp), is being transferred this summer to three of the lesser-known hermitages of Montsant, a mountain historically linked to spirituality. The first of the three concerts, with the involvement of the three town councils of the municipalities that host them, is held today (7pm) in the cave of Santa Llúcia, in an emblematic place attached to nature, in the Bisbal de Falset (Priorat).
“It aims to energize spaces with many dimensions within the natural park. Hermitages have a strong spiritual charge and in the park we have always opted for the integration of natural and cultural heritage. The hermitages are the gateway to the Montsant”, points out Montserrat Solà, technician for Public Use and Cultural Heritage of the Serra de Montsant natural park.
The cave of Santa Llúcia has another added value, as it is a place of historical memory. A republican field hospital was set up here to treat the wounded on the Ebro front during the Spanish Civil War.
Three unknown hermitages have been chosen that are in three dream enclaves, such as on top of a peak or in a rocky cavity. “They are really special places, the three lesser-known hermitages in the wildest area of ??the , where sometimes only climbers come,” says Solà. Nothing to do with the most popular part, often hit by Instagram, as in the case of Siurana (Cornudella de Montsant).
The cycle, Escolta Montsant, will move the same Papió grand piano tomorrow to the hermitage of Sant Pau, in La Figuera, and next Friday (August 4) to the hermitage of Sant Roc, in Cabacés, all in the Priorat region.
“It’s a different concert, more of being carried away by the senses in the middle of nature, just like when we bathe in a river or in the sea. I play without a break”, explains Papió, influenced by the Shinrin-Yoku forest baths, “with psychological and physiological benefits for people”.
The initiative was born with a desire for continuity. The Serra de Montsant natural park, with nine protected hermitages, is already thinking about future concerts, all free and open to the public. Every journey begins on the way to the hermitage.