The BBC Philharmonic opens the Canary Islands Music Festival

The BBC Philharmonic performs this Thursday at the Alfredo Kraus Auditorium in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and on Friday at the Tenerife Auditorium

The BBC Philharmonic will offer a concert this Thursday at the Alfredo Kraus Auditorium in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria with which will inaugurate the 39th Canary Islands Music Festival in which the formation of the United Kingdom will remember in the first part those displaced by the wars and in the second will offer a “message of joy” for those affected by the La Palma volcano.

This has been revealed by the director of the event, Jorge Perdigon; the president of the Canary Islands Angel Victor Torres; and the director of the opening concert, Juanjo Menaduring a press conference in which it was highlighted that the English chain has sent a recording team to the islands to record the two concerts of its tour of the Canary Islands and to later be able to broadcast it throughout the United Kingdom.

Works by Gerhard, Britten and Ravel

Regarding the concert, Mena noted that the concert program, which will be repeated this Friday also in Tenerife, offers works by Gerhard, Britten and Ravel.

«It is very thought out. We are in times of war and that is when Benjamin Britten decides to compose his first violin concerto taking into account the English soldiers who died in the Spanish civil war,” he said.

Here, he added that this piece is a kind of memory of the death of all those people in Spain, to clarify that sadly “we have to continue thinking that Robert Gerhard it happened to him».

«Between 1939 and 1940 he had to leave Barcelona for England, where I almost know he is considered more of an English composer but, nevertheless, for the Spanish it is the continuity of Falla and an open door to more contemporary music but always with great pleasure. and judgment,” he said.

Mena commented that these two composers will form the first part of the concert and that the BBC Philharmonic will do the pieces ‘Danzas de Don Quixote’ by Gerhard and ‘Violin Concerto, op. 15’ by Britten, in this case together with the German-Korean violinist Clara Jumi-Kang.

A “message of joy” for La Palma

Regarding the second part of the concert, the director explained that the idea is remember what the island of La Palma has suffered with the eruption of the ‘Cumbre Vieja’ and offer a message of joy to leave the volcano in the past and look for something more “pleasant”.

«And for that reason –he pointed out– we decided to go for the Ravel’s music and to be able to order a very beautiful program with ‘Pavana for a deceased infanta’, ‘La Valse’ and the ‘Bolero’, which [esta última] Although it is not played so much, it is also an interesting work with an enormous force to lift the spirits of the entire public ».

The Festival of the Eight Islands

In this regard, the president, Ángel Víctor Torres, has placed special emphasis on the “magnificent program” that those attending the Festival concerts that will take place on all the islands.

“It is the Music Festival of the eight islands – he said – and it has a program that each year surpasses the previous one, something that is transferred from different international spheres that recognize the leap in quality that is being experienced”.

Torres pointed out that the last few years have been difficult times and that The Canary Islands was the first autonomous community to recover live music during the pandemic with all the security measures that were required at the time. “The Canary Islands, which is sun, tourism and beach, is also music today”, he concluded.

Concerts by the great Canarian orchestras

On the other hand, within the framework of the 39th edition, the director of the Music festivalJorge Perdigón, recalled that the Tenerife Symphony will be in Fuerteventura and Lanzarote on January 13 and 14, respectively; while the Philharmonic of Gran Canaria it will do the same in La Palma and La Gomera these January 14 and 15; and in parallel the shows will take place ‘Disconcerto’ and the concert of the Big Band Canarias.

Finally, tickets for the different festival concerts are available at festivaldecanarias.comon the websites of the auditoriums and at the box office, also having reduced rates for music students and the unemployed.