NEWS

WORLD PREMIERE of
'Paisajes Sonoros de Espana'

Concert with ONM Madrid conducted by Josep Pons. World premiere of the concerto ' Paisajes Sonoros de Espana'. by Joan Albert Amargos.

9 April 2010, Madrid

KATIA & B For BANG : 'Ellas crean'

Ellas Crean: a festival for equality and culture

The ambitious programme of the sixth edition of “Ellas Crean”, the festival that celebrates and gives recognition to female creativity, includes more than 150 cultural activities, carried out by around 200 artists in 40 cities spread over the five continents. Joan Baez, Luz Casal, Agnès Jaoui, Barbara Hendricks, Nathalie Stutzmann, Valeria Sarmiento, Katia Labèque ' B for Bang' , Dana Kyndrová and Marisa Parades are just some of the best known participants.

“The program has been organised top-down, although in many ways the approach has been bottom-up as well”, explained the director of the festival, Concha Hernández, during her presentation in Madrid on 11 February. “This helps it to reflect the creativity of women and women's groups in every discipline and professional sphere”.

Spain's Minister of Equality, Bibiana Aído, stressed the need to “highlight the talent of creative women, which has been suppressed by male ignorance for so many centuries”. And culture is exceptional in that it provides a true reflection of artistic “democratisation”. The minister also highlighted the need for the future of every society to be built on cross-cutting equality since, in the words of Albert Einstein, “you can't build the future with ideas from the past”.

The European Presidency shared by Spain, Belgium and Hungary will give a very special flavour to the program, which will be seen in the works of creative women from these three countries being included.

Another new feature of the event is that its extensive and intense cultural program is being internationalised. Thirty Cervantes Institute centres on five continents will carry out a wide range of activities, in addition to specific activities planned for capital cities such as Paris. “Our centres will be large windows onto the world”, said Carmen Caffarel, Director of the Cervantes Institute, and the quality of many of the participating artists will be seen through them. “This is a key obligation of the Cervantes Institute”.

Furthermore, this will be the first time that the visual arts have been included in the festival, as well as being part of the program for ARCO, the international contemporary art fair. The visual arts will take centre stage, not only in galleries and other exhibition centres, but also in the multicultural project by Karin Elmore, “Tu cuerpo/El Mío” (“Your body/My body”), which will feature immigrants from Madrid's Lavapiés neighbourhood. The performance will also be shown in Lima (Peru).

The event will have added emotion through memories of great women such as the singer Mercedes Sosa, explained its artistic director, Luis Martín: “An icon of song and popular music, a fighter of the steamrolling Argentinean dictatorship, a creative woman and a rebel... Mercedes Sosa could be said to represent the spirit that runs through the whole of the festival”.

Ellas Crean is a major cultural event organised by the Spanish Government through its Ministries of Equality and Culture, in collaboration with another 50 bodies and organisations.

ROUNDHOUSE
Collaboration with young video artists

Katia and Marielle return to the Roundhouse – the venue where they made their UK debut – on Sunday 31 January as part of Reverb Roundhouse Concerts, a series which explores the many sides of music. As part of the concert, the Labèque sisters will collaborate with young video artists from the pioneering Roundhouse Studios on a new film.

Aspiring video artists, aged 17-25, will be working with SDNA, the leading creative digital agency, on a project which explores myriad ways to create visual imagery and video content for music. The film will be developed in a series of intensive creative sessions in advance of the concert, using the music by Satie, Debussy and Stravinsky that Katia and Marielle will perform at the Roundhouse. Live footage of the concert itself will also be integrated into the final work, with the film shown as part of the concert on 31 January.

The Roundhouse is one of London’s leading performing arts venues and, as a charity, it helps thousands of young people every year.

www.roundhouse.org.uk

NAZARENO for two pianos/percussion and orchestra

Osvaldo Golijov/Gonzalo Grau
'Nazareno ' for twos pianos , percussion and orchestra

World Premiere Paris 27th January 2010 with orchestre de Paris conducted by Josep Pons

USA premiere Toronto 24th February 2010 with Toronto Symphony conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya

The piece is based on 'La Pasión Según San Marcos' by Osvaldo Golijov'

I. Berimbao
II.Tambor en Blanco y Negro
III. Guaracha y Mambo
IV. Sur
V. Tormenta y Quitiplá
VI. Procesión

Katia and Marièle Labèque have commissioned the piece and the premiere took place in Paris at Salle Pleyel with Orchestre de Paris and conductor Josep Pons .
They brought the piece for the North American premiere with Toronto Symphony . This year’s festival highlighted works from Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov, whose music has been hailed by the New York Times as 'standing the whole world on its ear'.

Miguel Harth-Bedoya, conductor
Gonzalo Grau, percussion
Pablo Bencid, percussion

The Pasión will stand as the first indisputably great composition of the 21st Century.
- BOSTON GLOBE

LOUIS ANDRIESSEN
Composer of the Year

Louis Andriessen is recognized internationally as Holland's most influential and revered composer. He has been the subject of festivals at Lincoln Center and the Southbank Centre, has taught at Princeton, and been commissioned by the Netherlands Opera four times. This season he will occupy the Composer Chair at Carnegie Hall. At 70, he remains a rebel with a very large cause—a prolific composer of unfailing creativity and challenge. He has been mentor to young composers, and his music is in demand by boisterous alternative new-music groups everywhere. Simply stated, his time has come.