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Peret, the 'father' of Catalan rumba, dies from cancer aged 79

ACN

Pere Pubill i Calaf, better known as Peret, died at noon on Wednesday in a Barcelonan hospital, aged 79. The singer, guitar player and composer Peret was considered to be the 'father' of the so-called Catalan rumba, a fusion music style mixing Afro-Cuban mambo with flamenco and rock and roll. This rhythm was born in the 1950s within Barcelona's Gipsy community and became increasingly popular in the 1960s thanks to some of Peret's hits. Soon it became part of Catalonia's culture and common heritage, being extremely popular and receiving institutional recognition. Peret started his musical career extremely young in the 1940s. He published a total of 27 albums, and he was about to release his first disc entirely in Catalan. In his last years, he became particularly active in social and political movements, criticising poverty and supporting Catalan self-determination. A few weeks ago, he issued a press release announcing he was undergoing anti-cancer treatment.

August 27, 2014 09:25 PM

Solsona’s International Music Academy welcomes 65 young talents from 20 different nationalities

ACN / Neringa Sinkeviciute

Solsona's International Music Academy (AIMS) is a high level international project, which is also the first and only pedagogical music festival in Catalonia. It was created by the German cellist Peter Thiemann in order to bring together classical music students and professors of acknowledged international prestige who play in Europe's main orchestras. It is an intensive education project which takes place in a beautiful rural environment in Solsona, a town near the Pyrenees in Central Catalonia. This year, the 13th edition of the AIMS festival is held from the 6th to the 17th of August, and includes the participation of 65 students from 20 different nationalities. 30 concerts have been scheduled in ten municipalities of Western and Central Catalonia.

August 12, 2014 08:52 PM

Girona's Temporada Alta Festival to stage African version of 'Macbeth' and solo-performance of Catalan classic 'Lowlands'

ACN

The renowned performing arts festival Temporada Alta has revealed the first big names for its 23rd edition, which will take place in the cities of Girona and Salt (north-eastern Catalonia), from the 3rd of October until the 8th of December. The headliner on the international scene this year is MacbETH, an adaptation by Brett Bailey of Verdi’s opera relocated in the centre of post-colonial Africa and sang by twelve African voices. Pau Miró's adaptation of Angel Guimerà's Catalan classic Terra Baixa (Lowlands) in a solo-performance by the actor Lluís Homar and the play Ruz-Bárcenas, based on the 2013 corruption scandal involving the People's Party (PP), are also amongst the more than 90 shows that will perform in this festival that is a springboard for fresh talent.

August 8, 2014 03:42 PM

Electronic music pioneers Pet Shop Boys rock the stage at Costa Brava summer festival Cap Roig

ACN / Neringa Sinkeviciute

On Sunday night Pet Shop Boys presented their 12th studio album, Electric, at the summer music festival of Cap Roig, which takes place every year in Calella de Palafrugell, in the Costa Brava. The band performed an extraordinary show which included lighting effects, such as laser light beams, colourful theatrical smoke, and screen projections. Combining synthpop style, house and techno with more recent dance tracks, they have managed to evolve over the years but at the same time preserve their distinct style and continue to be revolutionary with every release. Cap Roig Festival is taking place from the 4th of July to the 15th of August and is combining worldwide-known artists and local musicians, such as Elton John, Bryan Adams, Placebo, James Blunt, Antonio Orozco and Els Pets, among others.

August 4, 2014 09:09 PM

Barcelona's performing arts summer festival Grec attracts 80,000 spectators, filling 58% of the potential capacity

ACN

This year's edition of Barcelona's performing arts summer festival, Grec, attracted around 80,000 spectators and achieved a 58.15% capacity utilisation in the shows which require payment. According to provisional statistics, taken before the event was over, for the 79 shows that made up the summer festival there were 136,291 seats available and 67,623 tickets were sold, filling 49.61% of the potential capacity. However, overall there was total of 79,254 spectators. Last year 66,466 people attended the shows which required payment and 55,766 tickets were sold. The total number of spectators who attended the festival this year, both paying customers and those who went to free shows, amounted to 127,471 people, whilst in 2013 there were 119,000 individuals.

August 1, 2014 08:56 PM

Over 30,000 people are estimated to attend open air film festival in Barcelona this summer

Rebecca Lock

The 12th Edition of Sala Montjuïc, an open air film festival which takes place every summer in Barcelona, is in full swing, and organisers estimate that over 30,000 people will have attended the event by the end of its five week running period. The festival runs from the 6th of July to the 8th of August and hosts evenings of live music, short films and feature length movies three times a week. An average of 2,000 spectators a night attend the screenings, which are located next to an old military castle on Montjuïc, a small hill facing Barcelona's harbour. Families can rent deckchairs, bring food and drink and enjoy watching the film whilst seated on the lawn alongside the castle's wall, in what used to be the ancient moat. This year one of the highlights included a special screening of the 1927 German classic Metropolis on the 18th of July which was accompanied by a live jazz band.

July 31, 2014 05:40 PM

London shows the nature photography work by Catalan and Hasselblad Award-winner, Fontcuberta

ACN

Barcelona-born photographer Joan Fontcuberta presents his first major exhibition in the UK, ‘Stranger than Fiction’, which represents an overview of 30 years of his artistic work on nature photography. It opened on Wednesday at London’s Science Museum's Media Space and will be running until the 9th of November. The six-part collection of pictures and artefacts aims to examine the presumed reliability of photography and shake the viewer's consciousness by mixing fact with fiction, science with art, and persuasive storytelling with a deep questioning. After London, the exhibition will travel to the National Media Museum in Bradford (northern England) from the 19th of November 2014 to the 8th of February 2015.

July 24, 2014 09:31 PM

The harpsichord duo Ton Koopman and Tini Mathot opened Bachcelona Festival

ACN

The Bachcelona Festival kicked off on Sunday with a concert by renowned harpsichord duo Ton Koopman and Tini Mathot at the Catalan capital's Palau de la Música concert hall. The performance included the famous ‘Art of Fugue,’ one of the most celebrated compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. The festival, which is designed to showcase the work of the great composer, will run in Barcelona until 27 July 2014. Koopman, a specialist in Baroque music and great interpreter of Bach’s work, gave attendees an intense and enjoyable musical evening, and was accompanied by his wife Mathot. The pair are noted for the authenticity of their performances, which sometimes even use exact replicas of instruments used by Bach.

July 23, 2014 09:32 PM

Catalan bands Mishima, Txarango and Headbirds perform in New York´s Central Park

ACN

Three of Catalonia´s most popular music groups played in Central Park in New York City on Sunday 21st July as part of the SummerStage Festival. The three Catalan performers, Mishima, Txarango and Headbirds, participated in the event under the slogan ´Catalan sounds on tour´, with the aim to internationalise Catalan musicians and performers. The festival is organised by New York´s City Parks Foundation with the object to raise awareness of the richness of different cultures, and this year includes the participation of the Ramon Llull Institute (IRL), Catalonia's public body to promote Catalan language and culture abroad.

July 21, 2014 08:54 PM

Barcelona Contemporary Art Museum (MACBA) broadens its horizons with new exhibition spaces and services

ACN / Pau Cortina

The Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA) is expanding into the nearby Àngels Square in the heart of the historic neighbourhood Raval. On 17th July the museum unveiled the details of its future plans, which are designed to increase the flow of visitors to the art centre. These include increased exhibition spaces and the expansion of the existing MACBA Study Centre. The project is estimated to cost a total of €2 million, 1.5 million of which will be provided by Barcelona City Council, and it is hoped that this will increase the number of visitors to the museum by 15% per year.

July 18, 2014 08:34 PM

Barcelona art museum CaixaForum exhibits a selection of the ´little treasures´ from Madrid's Prado

ACN / Pau Cortina

On the 16th July Barcelona art centre Caixaforumopened its last major exhibition of the season entitled ´Beauty captivates. Little treasures from the Museo del Prado´. The exhibition contains 135 small canvases from the great artists within Madrid´s museum collection such as Velázquez, El Greco, Rubens, Goya and Tiziano. It will run for almost six months, until the 5th of January 2015. The exhibition will enable visitors to contemplate the virtuosity of great masters of painting from the 14th to the 19th century dealing with small-scale works. It is the second largest collection of works that a host museumhas exhibited from the Museo del Prado, one of Europe's largest art collections.

July 17, 2014 05:26 PM

The Girona Film Festival will showcase 175 films from 35 different countries from around the world

ACN

The 26th edition of Girona´s Film Festival runs from the 15th to the 19th of July and will screen 175 films; a mix of feature films and short movies from 35 different countries. The festival will kick off with the restored version of Josep Maria Forn´s Los Culpables, shot in Girona in 1962. The event will also contain a new section entitled ´Made in Costa Brava Girona´, which will showcase new and old films shot in the north-eastern part of Catalonia. The festival is made up of 14 sections, six of which will include the presentation of non-monetary awards. Acclaimed Spanish designer, Javier Mariscal, will be a member of the judging panel.

July 15, 2014 06:27 PM

Costa Brava Girona Music Festival, a single brand for 65 music events

ACN

In Girona there are 65 music festivals and more than 250 performances scheduled throughout the year. Often, however, these festivals are not marketed effectively abroad and there is a lack of international promotion. Therefore, the Costa Brava Tourism Board has facilitated the creation of a single brand, through a website that brings together all of the different musical delights on offer in the region, in order to make these events more accessible and better advertised. For now, the site costabravagironafestivals.com gives the music festival programme for Girona, but has a goal to expand to include theatre, circus and dance events.

July 8, 2014 08:18 PM

Antoni Pitxot warns that the Dalí Theatre-Museum cannot be “split” in the event of Catalan independence

ACN

The director of the Dalí Theatre-Museum, Antoni Pitxot, stated on Monday that he does not contemplate changing the functioning of the museum in the event of Catalan independence. "I think there will be no conflict because the museum was created by Dali and an intelligent leader would never put any obstacles to the continuation of his great work" said Pitxot, who was a close friend of the artist until his death in 1989. Pitxot also stressed that the museum and its collection is "not divisible". In his last will, Salvador Dalí named Spain as the universal heir to his property, and the state negotiated with the Catalan government to leave 134 works of art in Figueres and bequeath 56 to Madrid.

July 7, 2014 08:24 PM

More than 600 amateur actors to participate in Girona’s 2014 International Festival of Amateur Theatre

ACN

In the last week of August, over 600 amateur actors from across the world will be descending on Girona for one of the liveliest dramatic art summer festivals, the International Festival of Amateur Theatre (FITAG). In the 14th edition of the festival, taking place from the 26-30 August, 33 performances will be staged over just five days, at various venues in the Girona capital and surrounding towns such as Figueres, Lloret de Mar, Palamós, Palafrugell, Maçanet Selva and La Jonquera. 15 of the participating theatre groups are local companies from Girona; a further 5 are from the rest of Spain and 11 are international. The aim of this year’s festival is to bring together the culture and theatre from different immigrant communities and strengthen international exchanges.

June 26, 2014 07:23 PM

Read the latest updates and breaking news on culture and cultural topics from Barcelona and Catalonia. Keep up to date with the city’s museums dedicated to some of the biggest artists in the world such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Antoni Tàpies, as well as other institutions such as the National Art Museum (MNAC), the Contemporary Art Museum of Barcelona (MACBA), and exhibition spaces like the Contemporary Culture Center of Barcelona (CCCB), CiaxaForum, and CosmoCaixa.