A performance by Jordi Savall will inaugurate the 16th Fira Mediterrània

Jordi Savall

A performance by Jordi Savall will inaugurate the 16th Fira Mediterrània of Manresa

- The prestigious Catalan musician, Jordi Savall, will be the Fira’s Guest Artist, with a program of activities based around him and around the Mediterranean as a cultural crossroads
- Savall’s program will consist of two concerts, a series of documentaries and a one day event on “Art and intercultural dialogue”
- A performance of Mare Nostrum. Dialogues of Christian, Muslim and Jewish music from around the Mediterranean will inaugurate the Fira’s program on Thursday, 7 November

The Fira Mediterrània, the great crossroads and Jordi Savall
The 16th edition of the Fira Mediterrània of Manresa will take place this year from 7 to 10 November. This new edition of the Mediterrània takes as its guiding theme the concept of the Mediterranean as a historical crossroads of cultures, as a place for encounter and mutual enrichment.
The inaugural performance will take place on 7 November. It will consist of a new presentation by Jordi Savall entitled Mare Nostrum. Dialogues of Christian, Muslim and Jewish music from around the Mediterranean. This renowned Catalan composer and musician, a specialist in early music, will present a new reading of his Mare Nostrum project. Being more than just music, Mare Nostrum constitutes a profound reflection on the history and idiosyncrasies of “Mare Nostrum” —“Our sea”— and of its peoples, a project which the Maestro Savall has been working on for years.
With the work Mare Nostrum. Dialogues of Christian, Muslim and Jewish music from around the Mediterranean we will be able to enjoy the Catalan premiere of a concert which focuses on the Eastern Mediterranean, with a new repertoire (in which Turkish-Ottoman elements predominate) and new musicians.

Turkey and Israel will thus be the main characters of a program which reveals Savall’s ability to build invisible bridges which join spirits and cultures. For this recital, Savall will count on the collaboration of such prominent artists as Lior Elmaleh (Israel - vocals), Gursoy Dinçer (Turkey - vocals), Yurdal Tokcan (Turkey - oud), Hakan Güngör (Turkey - qanun), Nedyalko Nedyalkov (Bulgaria - kaval), Yair Dalal (Israel - oud), Dimitri Psonis (Greece - santur) and Pedro Estévan (Spain - percussion).

The guest artist for this edition of the Mediterrània hardly needs an introduction. Jordi Savall (Igualada, 1941) is probably the best known Catalan musician on the international stage and one of the most important figures in Catalan culture today. He works on a grand scale and in a multiplicity of fields: he is a pioneer in the recovery of musical heritage; a great performer on the viola da gamba; a conductor of prestigious orchestras and a cultural activist through diverse initiatives such as artistic seasons, festivals and his own record label.
The choice of Savall as the Fira’s guest artist is due not only to his prestige and the indisputable quality of his work. There are besides aspects of his personality and career which make Savall fit very well within the Fira Mediterrània. He is a genuine humanist for our time, a pioneer in intercultural artistic dialogue — particularly among Mediterranean cultures — with a special interest in bringing music closer to the cultural universe in which it was produced, showing it as a crystallisation of the hopes and desires of a particular context and historical moment. He has, furthermore, shown his ability to break decisively the often watertight separations between music of high culture and popular culture, between academia and the main street, giving rise to a musical discourse that stresses the importance of one’s roots as the necessary foundations for coherent artistic creation. These two aspects of Savall’s undisputed career could also be applied to the essential ideas of the Fira.

Other activities of Savall at the Fira
Jordi Savall’s role at the Fira Mediterrània does not end with the opening performance. In addition to his inaugural concert, the musician will participate in other activities within the program. Savall will give a second concert, The Celtic Viol: once again a musical dialogue, but this time with popular music of Celtic origins. He will also give a talk at the event Art and intercultural dialogue, analysing art as a tool for connecting cultures. Finally, he will also appear as the protagonist in the documentaries Música Savall, Història Bòrgia and

Montserrat Figueres, the voice of emotion, that will help us better to understand this person, his environment and his creative philosophy. These works will be included in the season The Mediterranean, the great crossroads that will offer five audiovisual testimonies of the bonds between the Mediterranean, art and society.


Virtual Press Room - http://comedia.cat/ca/comediateca/mediterrania_2013
Official Website - www.firamediterrania.cat/‎

article posted by:David Ibañez, Fira Mediterrània Manresa