Ibercamera, Barcelona’s oldest classic season, celebrates 40 years this year. The president, Josep Maria Prat (Barcelona, ??1956), broke in in 1984 and continued the work started by Promúsica. He was a young man with courage who at 21 Oriol Regàs had appointed him manager of the Center for Musical Studies in Vallvidrera, and he already had the Camera Agency up and running, which today brings together great artists such as András Schiff, Maria João Pires, Daniil Trífonov, Quartet Casals or Pinchas Zukerman. But also young people whose tempos and evolution are respected…, which is a privilege in a world where commercial rush and profitability rule.
“We are a team of people at the service of music, artists and the public, and we have a way of acting that makes people see us as an institution”, says the entrepreneur and cultural promoter, proud of the team of ten people from Ibercamera, plus the five from the agency. Apart from organizing tours (they will reach a hundred performances of Carmina Burana with La Fura dels Baus) they promote seasons in Madrid and Girona.
Today, the opening concert of the 40th Ibercamera Season is held at L’Auditori de Barcelona (8 p.m.), which will feature Zukerman and Olga Sitkovetski (Pires canceled yesterday due to medical prescription), who will perform Beethoven’s Spring Sonata, in addition from the Orchester National de Lyon and the Orfeó Català conducted by the Danish Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider in the Ninth Symphony.
And he says they’ve had spectacular sales growth?
Yes, we can’t believe it.
For the post-pandemic euphoria?
And part.
40 years ago the world of classical music was already suffering from an aging audience without replacement. Was it crazy to start the cycle?
It’s easy to put things into perspective and explain them, but to do them, you don’t know why you’re doing them. We left because of the fall of Lluís Portabella, who had the only music season with the city’s entity, Promúsica, and also had the Liceu on his back and had bought the record label Belter. In addition, it must be taken into account that the Palau de la Música had been a container for a hundred years, it had never programmed. Until 1991, obsessed with the Olympics, Fèlix Millet invented Palau 100.
Did this affect Ibercamera?
He agreed with our orchestra supplier in Madrid and decided that we had to close. But our great friend Enric Sisquella, who helped us with the programming, saw the trick: they were giving us false dates for the concerts; the orchestras, in reality, would come to Palau 100. I told Millet that I was finished, but that he would have to buy the company. And, in the two months that we negotiated the sale of Ibercamera for 70 million pesetas, I asked him to give me the real dates, the false dates; otherwise the banks wouldn’t give me credit. And I prepared another season: Mstislav Rostropovich, Isaac Stern, Lorin Maazel, Maurizio Pollini, Maria João Pires, Jessye Norman… La Vanguardia had to publish it. The same day I was supposed to sign, I decided not to come.
And why does he opt for music?
Because I see that it is more virgin land. Pasqual Maragall had a lot to do with it: the last great politician who loved music. I had discovered Bach with Serena Vergano, then my partner, at Ricardo Bofill’s house, where Bach and Camarón were also heard…
He didn’t get to represent Camarón…
He proposed it to me, but I told him no, because I had a weapons permit…
did he laugh
He was not amused. we were friends I offered him a Palace if he would give up the heroin. He left her in March, I took her there in June.
You start with Lluís Claret, with Bruno Gelber…, then Barenboim appears… How do you access the great Soviet pianist Sviatoslav Richter?
Because I wanted him, I didn’t stop following him everywhere to take him to Spain. He was an inaccessible legend, he didn’t talk on the phone, he didn’t have a manager… When I got him to receive me, he said “I already know you”. The cellist Natalia Gutman had told him about me one day while cutting his hair. In 1989 we did the tour. Many artists become addicted to our tours, because we are a machine at their service. Richter once said: “I am a concert man, and on concert days I am a helpless creature on the verge of imminent catastrophe.” This is the artist. And, on our part, there is great loyalty and a great attempt to understand what they are doing. This is not spoken, it is transmitted. They are bonds that are not written. We have never had a contract with any artist. Maybe some management. But, no, not with Gergiev, not with Pires. This is a service.
The first season brought many orchestras, starting with the Israel Philharmonic with Eliahu …
Yes, but that makes me think of how we used to do it, badly. We didn’t have the criteria and rigor we have now. We made them big, yes, Ivo Pogorelic canceled and we brought Oscar Peterson, there was a lot of courage and unconsciousness, but we didn’t discuss programs, we accepted the ones that were brought to us. Now we work better than ever, we are infinitely better than 25 or 40 years ago; otherwise, we would have disappeared in the middle of what is happening in the city.
Doesn’t always bringing your artists make you fall into repetition?
The programming sequence of works, regardless of who conducts or plays them, is well thought out. Beethoven’s symphonies, Brahms’ and Mahler’s symphonies continue to unfold… Next year Teodor Currentzis will perform the Heroica. It hasn’t been done for years…
…to Ibercamera.
It is inevitable to fall into repetition regarding other programming.
What was the sudden crush on Gergiev like?
He once came with a Boris Godunov and the Mariinsky to the Palace and began a personal relationship. And until yesterday, we spoke on the phone. It was important, it pushed us to tour. Our artists, such as Gergiev or Currentzis, have been on the sidelines of the big agencies. They are very free people who have focused on their project and have not played the power game.
Will he return to Barcelona after the cancellations due to the war in Ukraine?
Of couse. We are clear that music must be a bridge between cultures and peoples, not a projectile. A week before we brought Currentzis last season we brought the Warsaw Symphony under the Ukrainian flag, and now the Israel Philharmonic will come: we are on the fringes of the systematic contamination of art by politics.
