concert

With all tickets sold out months ahead, the audience which gathered Saturday in the Sadler 's Wells Theatre listened with much emotion to Barcelona Singer Sílvia Pérez Cruz and Guitarist Raül Fernández Miró, during the closing concert of the 11th Flamenco Festival London. The Catalan musicians have interpreted three Flamenco themes and performed songs from their latest album, still unnamed, which will also lead them to New York next week. The new album, the first common release after eight years of collaboration, includes songs in Catalan, French, English and German. The musicians will officially present it in a concert at the Tívoli theatre in Barcelona on the 25th of April.

On Saturday evening, 90,000 people gathered in FC Barcelona Camp Nou stadium to attend a concert backing Catalonia’s right to self-determination. The event, organised by a civil society entity – Òmnium Cultural – and without public funding, called for a self-determination referendum in 2014. The two largest political parties in Catalonia, which share a parliamentary stability pact, stated that a specific date for a self-determination vote should be fixed after December 2013. In addition, they insisted that the Catalan President will send a letter to the Spanish Prime Minister in July asking for this vote to be organised. However, in Madrid, the reactions have been almost non-existent. The Spanish Justice Minister insisted that a referendum would be illegal since sovereignty is rooted into the Spanish people as a whole.

The British band met all expectations as headliner of the festival with a macro-concert crammed full of well-known hits. The younger sister of Beyoncé, Solange, the post-dubstep king James Blake and the eclectic quartet Django Django were also the main acts of a very intense night.