Music will fill the squares, streets and the city with Cadiz’s IV Spanish Music Festival to be held between the 16th and 26th November. The world’s music is brought together at the birthplace of Manuel de Falla by Spanish conductors, musicians, composers, researchers and the general public.
Yet you do not have to be an expert to enjoy this recent but successful initiative of the Autonomous Government of Andalusia, whose aim is to foster Spanish creativity in connection with universal music. Cadiz attracts the best musicians as the audience well knows. This year will start with an open-air concert featuring the best Renaissance polyphonic at various points in the old city. Last year, over 16,000 people enjoyed the magic of the music.
This is the fourth year of the festival, which will be dedicated to the musician Manuel Castillo, Mozart and famous female composers, such as Mariana Martínez.
This year’s festival in Cadiz will be an opportunity to discover the Hispanic tradition of the Mozarabic rhythm and the orthodox rhythm of the Byzantine chant that echoes the remote tones of classical Greece, that so influenced Manuel de Falla.
Then, of course, there will be Flamenco, contemporary dance and the echoes of Eastern traditions that come together in the dance of Belén Maya, who will perform her latest show, "Dibujos".
Apart from the performances by the main artists, there will be concerts by the leading Andalusian institutional orchestras.
During the presentation of the programme, the Autonomous Government of Andalusia’s Regional Minister for Culture, Rosa Torres, stressed that the Festival will “first of all tackle the unforgettable figure of Manuel Castillo, to whom this year's festival is dedicated as the master of various generations and pioneer of the languages of contemporary music in Andalusia." “Secondly,” continues Torres, “there will be a many-faceted look at the figure of Mozart through the musical creations of its Spanish contemporaries and, finally, a current and historical sample of music performed by women”.
Rosa Torres also spotlighted the performance by the Royal Chamber Opera Company conducted by Juan Bautista Otera, who will recover “Cantatas escénicas” by the composer, singer and harpsichordist, a contemporary of Mozart, Mariana Martínez.
Another key figures in the programme are Ara Malikian, the violinist, Ana Guijarro, the pianist, and José María Sánchez Verdú, acting both as composer and orchestral conductor.
The "Children's Festival" will yet again focus on schoolchildren, while "Magic and Music" will be performed for the children at the Puerta del Mar Hospital.
The “Night Musicians” programme, which will be performed at different points of the city, will enable young groups to take part and ensure a festive atmosphere for the Festival.
The Workshops and Seminars section, which will be organised in collaboration with Cadiz University, and the exhibitions and publications will provide the finishing touches to this year’s festival.
The budget for the Festival is 436,000 euros, 350,000 of which are provided by the Regional Ministry of Culture, with the<
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