New music festival in Barcelona during the summer with Josep Carreras and Julio Iglesias topping the programme

Barcelona (ACN).- Barcelona will have a new music festival this summer: the Festival ‘Jardins del Palau de Pedralbes’, which will take place between the 20^th of June and the 8^th of July in the Catalan capital. The festival wants to bring an eclectic selection of artists in the early weeks of the summer season. It will start just after the Sónar music festival (which specialises in electronic music) and for a few days it will coincide with the beginning of the Barcelona’s performing arts festival ‘Grec’, which is the main summer festival in Catalonia. According to the organisers, they wanted to fill “an empty space” in Barcelona’s musical season. The first ‘Festival Jardins del Palau de Pedralbes’ will showcase Josep Carreras, Julio Iglesias, Antony and the Johnsons, Natalie Cole, Roger Hodgson, Earth Wind & Fire and Crosby, Stills & Nash, with two more artists still to be confirmed. Concerts will be in the open air at the Pedralbes gardens, where the Union for the Mediterranean headquarters are located. The private company Concert Studio is behind the initiative, which has the support of Barcelona City Council and the Catalan Government. Public funds will only cover 2% of the festival’s budget. Concert Studio was in charge of organising the Cap Roig festival (in the Costa Brava) until two years ago and also launched the Festival del Mil·leni (also in Barcelona). Tickets will be on sale from Tuesday. They will cost between €34 and €130, and 2,179 seats will be available for each concert in semi-circular stands. The Mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Trias, was present at the presentation of the festival, which took place on Monday.

Two years after having lost the management of the Festival de Cap Roig – which takes place in Calella de Palafrugell, on the Costa Brava – Concert Studio will organise another summer festival. This time, the event will take place in Barcelona. According to the company’s Director, Martin Pérez, the city was lacking such a festival in the early weeks of the summertime. “Diversity, quality and integration in Barcelona”, are the guiding principles of the new festival.

The festival will have a €1.8 million budget. €400,000 will be obtained through private company sponsorship, which is brought in by large companies from the insurance, wine and real estate sectors. In addition, the festival has the support of Barcelona’s City Council and the Catalan Government. However, public funds only represent 2% of the festival’s budget.

The Catalan tenor Josep Carreras – who used to be one of the three tenors with Luciano Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo – will kick off the festival on the 20^th of June. Carreras will sing Broadway classics and will be joined by the soprano Gladys Rossy and the GIOrquestra. The other Spanish artist will be Julio Iglesias who will perform his greatest hits on the 26^th of June.

The organisers are still waiting to confirm two other artists, but the programme is completed by Antony and the Johnsons, Natalie Cole, Roger Godgson (the former Supertramp frontman), Earth, Wind & Fire and Crosby, Stills & Nash. The festival’s director lamented that this year no dancing show will be included, but he hoped to be able to do so next year since “dance has to be in the festival”.

Martín Pérez also said that the festival will contribute to a charity project: the association Casal dels Infants del Raval, which works with children and youngsters from the poor families of downtown Barcelona. The festival will make a significant economic contribution to the association on the one hand and, on the other, the organisation will hire some of the youngsters to work in the festival.