DATES: 3, 10, 17 and 24 AUGUST
PLACES:
Cloister of the Monastery, Valldemossa
CONCERTS BEGIN: 10 pm
PROGRAM
3
MAREK DREWNOWSKI, piano
www.drewnowski.pl
10
IVÁN MARTÍN, piano
GALDÓS ENSEMBLE
17
JUHO POHJONEN, piano
http://www.juhopohjonen.com/
24
RAMON ANDREU, violin
DMITRY STRUCHKOV, cello
ANDREU RIERA, piano
EXHIBITION / Chapter House of the Monastery
RENÉE MICOULAUD
IV INTERNATIONAL CHOPIN PIANO MASTER CLASS VALLDEMOSSA
.
More course information in CHOPIN MASTER CLASS section.
The International Chopin Festival of Valldemossa
In 1930, the Mallorcan composer Joan Maria Thomàs created the Chopin Festival –the first in the world– with the assistance of the Boutroux-Ferrà couple, who offered him the use of cell number 2 in the Carthusian Monastery in Valldemossa as the Festival’s headquarters.
Between 1931 and 1936 this musical enterprise hosted the most significant composers and performers of the early twentieth century. Some of its members were the Polish composers I. Paderewski, K. Szymanowski, A. Tasman and L. Rozycki; the Spaniards Manuel de Falla, Oscar Esplà, Ernesto Halffter, Frederic Mompou and Joaquín Turina; the Mallorcans Jaume Mas Porcel and Baltasar Samper. Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky and Alfredo Casella were also members of the Honorary Committee. Among others who performed in Palma and Valldemossa were Arthur Rubinstein, Alfred Cortot, Alexandre Uninsky, Mieccio Horzowski, José Cubiles and Pau Casals, all of them essential reference points where the performance of works by Chopin is concerned.
The military coup which brought about Franco’s dictatorship meant the disappearance of this musical iniciative of international renown.
(1965-1980)
During the process of political evolution undergone by the Franco régime, on 24th December 1964 the government passed the Law of Association, which granted people the right to gather for cultural and educational purposes. Under the auspices of the new law, Aina Maria Boutroux and a group of friends quickly drew up the statutes of an association which they registered the same day the law came into force –30th April 1965– under the title «The Frédéric Chopin and George Sand Trust». Aina Maria Boutroux, who had created the Frédéric Chopin and George Sand Museum, was elected chairwoman; she assigned a yearly endowment to the Trust and acquired a Steinway piano. With the cooperation of the Palma-based Joventuts Musicals they organized concerts with performers such as Vlado Perlemuter, Samson François, Tamas Vasary, Irina Zaritskaya, Eugene Indjic or Walid Akl, all names linked forever to Chopin’s work.
(1981)
Refoundation of the Chopin Festival by the Chopin Festivals of Valldemossa Association
In 1981, people from such diverse cultural fields as literature, music, theatre, or law, formed an association to breathe new life into the Chopin Festivals.
Throughout its 29 editions, the Festival has welcomed to the Cloister of the Monastery award-winning pianists in the Warsaw Chopin Competitions. Performances by Bella Davidovich, Fou Ts’ong, Irina Zaritskaya, Garrick Olsson, Piotr Paleczny, Eugene Indjic, Janusz Olecniczak, Ivan Klansky, Dang Thai Son, Ewa Poblocka, Eric Berchot, Stanislaw Bunin, Marc Laforet, Krysztof Jablonski, Jean-Marc Luisada, Ludmil Angelov, Kevin Kenner, Gabriela Montero and Ingrid Fliter have left an indelible memory in Valldemossa.
Pianists of international renown such as Alicia de Larrocha, Alfred Brendel, Aldo Ciccolini, Chura Cherkasky, Rafael Orozco, Tamas Vasary, Nelson Freire, Joaquín Achúcarro, Elisabeth Leonskaya and Alain Planés, as well as the new generation of pianists represented by Mikhail Pletnev, Leif Ove Andsnes, Christian Zacharias, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Nikolai Demidenko, Nikolai Lugansky, Martin Kasik andi Nelson Goerner, among others, have endowed international prestige on our association. In 1983 we opened the Festival to contemporary plastic artists, many of whom were inspired by Chopin’s music or scenery to create a symbiosis between musical and pictorial material. Important painters, photographers, sculptors or ceramicists have exhibited their work in the Monastery’s Chapter House and have also designed posters, programmes and T-shirts for the Festival.
The generosity and loyalty towards our Festival shown by many Catalan artists such as Josep Guinovart, Albert Ràfols-Casamada, Joan Gardy-Artigas, Frederic Amat or Alfons Alzamora has allowed us to exhibit their work on several occasions.
The exhibition devoted to Joan Miró in 1990, showing his engravings from the Mallorca series, marked a milestone in the history of the Festival; the poster design was L’Àngel de la música [The Angel of Music], a drawing made by the artist in our visitors’ book in 1964.
The Festival has housed individual exhibitions by Jim Bird, Lluís Blanes, Nils Burwitz, Pep Canyelles, Toni Catany, Pep Coll, Margalida Escalas, Merche Laguens, James Lambourne, Guillem Llabrés, Cris Pink, Dolores Sampol, Lourdes Sampol, Horacio Sapere, Pep-Maür Serra and Bruno Zupan, all well-known artists from, or residents in, Mallorca.
As part of our commitment to the avant-garde, we have produced some functions of our own, such as the Festa per a Erté (a tribute to the designer Romain de Tirtoff), and have coproduced others such as Accions by La Fura dels Baus or Promenade Concert by Carles Santos; performances which have put the Festival in touch with contemporary creativity.
We have programmed works by the Mallorcan composers Jaume Mas Porcel, Joan M. Thomàs, Antoni Parera Fons and Carme Fernández Vidal, interpretated by Joan Moll, Miquel Estelrich, Maria José Montiel, Bartomeu Jaume and the Wilanow Quartet.
Of note are the premiéres of contemporary works such as the Variacions sobre un Preludi de Chopin, op. 223 [Variations on a Prelude by Chopin, op. 223], by the Mallorcan composer Romà Alís, first performanced at the 2006 Festival by the piano duo Albert Díaz and Xavier Mut.
In 2004, the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of George Sand, we organized a series of activities designed to demonstrate the vitality and contemporaneity of Sand’s writings and the importance of this freethinking woman, who led so many struggles for freedom, equality and fraternity among mankind in the 19th century. The Council of Mallorca named her a favourite daughter of the island «in recognition of her merits as a writer and an intellectual, at the same time a distinguished pioneer in promoting Mallorca around Europe» and provided us with a diploma as a supporting document.
With the aim of spreading knowledge of George Sand’s work, the Council of Mallorca and the University of the Balearic Islands signed a cooperative agreement in 2009 to create a Sand collection. Under the direction of Rosa Capllonch Ferrà and Biel Mesquida, the George Sand Collection will publish Catalan editions of the works most closely related to Sand’s stay in Mallorca, during the winter of 1838-39.
From 2005 to 2009, the Consulate General of Poland in Barcelona, the Honorary Consulate of Poland in Palma and the Chopin Festivals of Valldemossa Association have jointly celebrated the National Holiday to Commemorate the Constitution of 3rd May 1791 with a concert in the Monastery performed by Polish musicians, in a fraternal gathering of citizens of Poland and Mallorca.
The organization of two F Chopin and G Sand in Mallorca International Musicology Symposiums, courses in piano interpretation, the screening of documentaries and films, lectures, etc, are proof of our constant activities over the past 29 years.
The Chopin Festivals of Valldemossa Association has taken part in the creation of Spanish and international bodies devoted to promoting music. It is a founding member, and a member of the Executive Committee, of the International Federation of Chopin Societies, with headquarters in Warsaw, and a member of Festclásica, the Spanish Association of Classical Music Festivals.
The Association was presided by Margarida Ferrà Boutroux, (1918-1997), a person of great kindness and magnificent public relations, from its creation in 1981 until her death in 1997. On the first occasions on which the Festival was held we did not receive public grants and it was her patronage that made it possible. In 1989 the Polish Ministry of Culture distinguished her with the Order of Cultural Merit for her work in spreading Polish culture, through both the museum and the Festival.
At present, the Festival receives financial support from the following sources: the Council of Mallorca, the Government of the Balearic Islands, Valldemossa Town Hall, and the Reial Cartoixa de Valldemossa, SL. It has the support of the Cartoixa residents’ association, the Parish of Valldemossa, the advertising companies Dironte and Malla, and the generous contributions of several people.
Financial stability is guaranteed by around 150 members of the Association. The Executive Committee members for 2010 are: Rosa Capllonch Ferrà (president), Guillem Llabrés (vicepresident), Jaume Capllonch Ferrà (treasurer), Ramon Andreu (secretary), Joan Moll (deputy secretary) and Bozena Adamczyk, Carles Bonnín, Josep. R. Caubet, Albert Díaz, Miquel Estelrich, Maria J. Mas, Biel Mesquida, Xavier Mut, Lourdes Sampol, Pep-Maür Serra and Jaume Vidal.
The Association’s headquarters are in the F Chopin and G Sand Museum and, since 1988, cell number 3 holds the archives, the temporary exhibitions and the offices.
Our programme is available on our website <www.festivalchopin.com>