A hundred years ago, the patron and writer Rafael Patxot initiated a private project together with the Orfeó Català and specialists in traditional songs that culminated in the Obra del Cançoner Popular de Catalunya. This legacy of popular music turns 100 years old in 2022 and, for that reason, the Cor de la Cambra of the Palau de la Música presents the concert tour El cançoner popular contemporani - 100 years of the work of the Popular Cançoner, directed by Xavier Puig and curated by Jaume Ayats.
This initiative, in collaboration with the Department of Culture, aims to "open and bring the Catalan popular musical legacy closer to the new generations and, in this way, be able to give it continuity", explained Adelaida Moya, General Director of Popular Culture and Cultural Associations of the Generalitat.
Consequently, the concert offers fifteen songs selected from the sixty thousand copies that are archived from the last century. Some of the songs have arrangements previously made by renowned composers such as Bernat Vivancos, Xavier Pastrana or Joan Magrané, among others.
According to the organization, this concert aims to "make available to the Catalan choral world its own material that brings traditional melodies closer to singers and offers possibilities for composers to give outlet to their creativity". For this reason, the program also includes pieces with arrangements expressly commissioned for the occasion by young talents, including Arnau Tordera, Marta Pintó and Josep Ollé.
The first concert was inaugurated on November 5 at the Castle of Concabella (Lleida), but it will premiere at the Sala Petita of the Palau de la Música, the same place where the Cançoner Popular project was born in 1922; next November 12.
The contemporary popular songstress - 100 years of the Work of the Popular Songstress will have a total of 10 concerts spread throughout Catalonia, with the intention of "decentralizing a remembrance of an initiative that sought throughout the Catalan territory pueblos, canciones and unusual traditions," said Jaume Ayats, curator of the centenary activities.
In this way, Joaquim Uriach, president of the Fundación Orfeó Català-Palau de la Música Catalana, has highlighted that this centenary is a very patriotic and proud initiative of Catalan culture. Thus, it helps to recover an oral tradition that has currently been lost in the way of producing music.
The concerts of the Cor de la Cambra of the Palau de la Música star in the centenary of the Work of the Popular Cançoner of Catalonia, which collects a popular legacy of sixty thousand songs that were sung throughout the Catalan territory between 1922 and 1936. This initiative, with a clear vocation for continuity beyond the centenary year, arises from the collaboration of the Palau de la Música with the General Department of Popular Culture and Cultural Associations of the Government of Catalonia, which will last, for the time being, until the 29th of August.
