music festival

An additional 38 artists have been announced to perform at the 2015 Sónar Festival, held each year in Barcelona in June. This includes the likes of Eighties pop band, Duran Duran, pop diva Róisín Murphy, British quintet Hot Chip and FKA Twigs, considered as one of the most prominent vocalist at the moment. South African duo Die Antwoord, Arca, Flying Lotus and Skrillex, are also confirmed.  With these additions, Sonar’s lineup is shaping up to be its best yet, with the already confirmed performances of Autechre, Kiasmos, Kindness, Sophie, Daniel, Ten Walls, Holly Herndon, Kate Tempest, Jamie XX and The Chemical Brothers, who will present their new album ‘Hanna’.

On Friday, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival opens in Yorkshire, England, and once again the line-up features many Catalan musicians and composers. This is thanks to an agreement with the Ramon Llull Institute (IRL); the public body promoting Catalan culture abroad. The festival is internationally renowned in the fields of contemporary and experimental music, and aims to create exchanges between artists from different countries. Running until November 30, the festival will also have a presence in Barcelona, through cooperation with the British Council and Barcelona’s L’Auditori concert hall. Carlos Casas, Ferran Fages and Hèctor Parra (who was Huddersfield’s resident composer last year) are some of the Catalan artists that are in this year’s line-up. The festival will begin on Friday with Carlos Casas’ ‘Avalanche’, a track that was released at Barcelona’s music festival Sonar in 2010, and has now hit the UK.

The 17^th Mediterranean Trade Fair, specialised in folk and world music, will take place from Thursday to Sunday, expected to attract 100,000 people to the city of Manresa, in central Catalonia. The most international fair of its history, it will feature over 300 art activities, host 107 companies and show 35 exhibitions. Highlights of the programme include the popular Portuguese singer Dulce Pontes and the musical duo Toumani Diabaté -the world famous African harpist-and his son Sidiki. Pluralism and the question of "what is popular culture today" will be the defining themes of this year’s event, which will host over 1,000 professionals, including 30 speakers and 180 cultural projects. The Fair will also be a tribute to the late musician Peret, the ‘father’ of Catalan rumba who sadly passed away in August.

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 13^th edition of the AIMS festival is held from the 6^th to the 17^th 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.

On Sunday night Pet Shop Boys presented their 12^th 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 4^th of July to the 15^th 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.

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.

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.

Three of Catalonia´s most popular music groups played in Central Park in New York City on Sunday 21^st 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.

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.

Sónar, Barcelona´s ‘Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art’ came to end on Saturday night with a total attendance of 109,000 people, the second best in the festival’s 21 year history. However, it is a 10% less than 2013 record figures. 53% of those attending the 2014 edition were foreigners. Sónar by Night on Saturday has claimed the ability to make the masses dance with a program marked by disco anthems from Nile Rodgers of Chic to performances by Rudimental and DJ Snake. Massive Attack were among the best performers of the night, in their second concert after the opening day. Multiple simultaneous stages with performances from some of the biggest names in electronic music gave national and international festival-goers a lot to choose from.

Sónar+D is an international conference for creativity and technological innovation which coincides with the Sónar by Day Festival. The conference will organize lectures, project exhibitions, stage activities and hold meetings with experts to enhance talent and further opportunities in the digital environment creating a strong parallel to the music festival. This year is the second edition of Sónar+D and the conference is growing now bringing together more than 100 companies, as well as artists, entrepreneurs and technicians from around the world to promote talent and business opportunities in the area of ??culture. The festival's co-director Enric Palau recently revealed details about this year’s program, which is a new initiative divided into four areas. An area dedicated to round table conferences, an exhibition area where more than 40 featured worldwide technology projects are to be on show, a space for art shows and an area where attendees can meet renowned professionals.

The 21^st edition of the International Festival of Advanced Music and New Media Art Sónar 2014 is set and ready to take over the Catalan capital from the 12^th -14^th June. As in recent years, the festival will alternate between two different locations depending on whether it is a day or a night event. Fira Montjuïc is the location for Sónar by Day whereas Sónar by Night takes place in Fira Gran Via L’Hospitalet. In this way, the festival offers two different venues for the crowd, one for those who prefer a relaxing chill out in the Mediterranean sunshine and another for a greater party atmosphere as the night draws in. The two locations are ready to play host to the performances of a packed line-up made up of more than 130 artists, bands and deejays. With several stages and a program replete with star names, the Sónar crowd is in for a treat as top notch electronic musicians from all over the world will perform before a local and international crowd.

The 2014 Primavera Sound Festival, taking place from the 28^th to the 31^st May in the Catalan capital, is offering more concerts in its largest-ever space with a capacity for 60,000 people per day. Most of the 348 concerts will be on stages distributed throughout the Forum Park, next to the sea and Sant Adrià del Besos' marina. Other artists are programmed in concert halls such as the Sala Apolo or Barts. Headliners this year include Arcade Fire, Queens of the Stone Age, Mogway and Caetano Veloso, among many other international artists. Furthermore, top Catalan bands such as Mishima will also be playing.

Joan Colomo, Alberto Montero and the band Anímic are playing on the same day, Saturday 3^rd May, at one of the main musical events of the UK, combining international artists with cinema and digital arts. The festival gathers more than 40,000 punters and 3,000 professionals, taking place from the 1^st to the 3^rd of May in different Liverpool venues. The Sound City Festival is a must-go event to discover new pop and rock talents, among which are the 3 Catalan representatives. The first is the singer and song-writer Joan Colomo, who will be presenting his latest album 'La fília i la fòbia'. The second is Valencia-born composer Alberto Montero, who will play parts of his 'Puerto Príncipe' album. Finally, the last Catalan band is Anímic, who will show their latest work 'Hannibal'.

The international expansion of Barcelona-based festival of electronic music, Sónar, continues. The first edition of Sónar Stockholm and the second edition of Sónar Reykjavik have attracted more than 12,000 attendees between them this past weekend. Both festivals have welcomed Nordic and international artists who performed in over 100 concerts on eight different stages. In the Icelandic capital, the festival was held in the Harpa Auditorium, at the very centre of the city. A total number of 8,900 visitors attended at least one of the 70 concerts spread over five stages. On the other hand, 40 concerts were scheduled on three different stages during Sónar Stockholm, which attracted 3,600 people, with several concerts sold out weeks ahead.