The Liceu Conservatory Foundation is a non-profit cultural and pedagogical institution created by social initiative and with public service vocation. It continues the activity started in 1837 with the Barcelona’s Philharmonic and Dramatic Lyceum of Montesión.
Its purpose is to serve the society through teaching, artistic expression, and knowledge transfer. Always with the firm conviction that music contributes to human, etic and social progress.
The Foundation’s mission, according to its statutes, is:
- To promote and to encourage music studies, and art studies in general, in all education standards.
- To develop the training of professional musicians in music and arts.
- To encourage research and quality improvement in culture and pedagogy fields.
- To favor the promotion and the diffusion of arts through the organization, the production, and the performance in concerts and other artistic events.
- To protect and to preserve the historical heritage, as well as the pedagogical spirit, of the Philharmonic and Dramatic Lyceum of Montesión.
- To provide networking opportunities to the students.
Intense work with institutions, academic and social organizations, societies and businesses carries out its mission across the country as well as on an international level. This task materializes in key aspects of our activities such as the encouragement of sponsorship initiatives and the creation of one of the most important scholarship funds in today’s educational world. Our other projects are the establishment of academic and cultural cooperation agreements (allowing the performance of many events for the cultural activity development in the society) and the schedule of the artistic activities performed in the premises located at the mentioned centers.
One of the main purposes of this work is the management of the academic activity of the Center for Higher Education, the Professional Center and their linked Music Schools.
The Higher Education Center is the tip of the educational pyramid of our academic program. It is the place where our visibility as an institution, our historical reference, and our international presence is more evident. As well as the development of our connection with the cultural and professional world of the music sector. Thus, it is a fundamental object of our foundational management: more than 80% of our national and international agreements are related to the Center.
At the Professional Center the musical instrument practice –as a focal point in all repertoires– is aimed to develop the talent of the children, teens, youngsters, and adults with a double goal: to give the best training to those who want to continue their studies in order to become professional musicians. Also, to spread the amateur music practice to contribute to our society’s culture and the training of new audiences.
We also consider that it is indispensable to spread the music training and its practice among our population, especially among the children. For this reason, we have developed agreements with Music Schools and General System Schools. Thanks to these agreements many students can follow our educational program and our artistic activities.
Altogether more than 10.000 students define the educational pyramid of the Liceu Conservatory, 50% of which concerns children and youngsters in non-regulated programs of music initiation (Music Schools). The rest of the students are distributed between the Professional Center and the Center for Higher Education.
The Liceu Conservatory Foundation is an institution compromised with other social, cultural and academic entities on a national and international level. Its purpose is to work together with the idea of making music, arts, and education the focal point of the future’s society. With this goal, we currently are members of 19 entities and organizations, and we have established agreements to develop activities with 266 institutions on a university or cultural level all over Europe (we must also add the programs in Asia, South America, and Oceania) as well as with lots of institutions, organizations, and businesses all over Catalonia and Spain.
Moreover, the Foundation keeps its tradition of connection with the philanthropy and the sponsorship thanks to the generosity of persons, businesses and the Foundation itself. This connection has allowed the developing of a powerful program of Scholarships for the future professional musicians that covers up to 10% of the students in the Center for Higher Education. These scholarships make possible the support to the talented young people of Spanish and Latin America nationalities –or from any other country– who pursue the dream to get music training in an exceptional and educational environment.
Finally, activities spanning from small academic concerts and auditions to our Auditorium season reveal the artistic dimension of all our centers which get major visibility and public spreading. Through its concert cycles, the Auditorium has consolidated itself as one of the best Chamber halls in Barcelona: the Liceu Jazz (hosting the Barcelona’s Voll-Damm International Jazz Festival), the Liceu Cambra, the Liceu Jove and the Liceu Familiar. In addition, we have the Liceu Jam Sessions of the Conservatory’s Cafè, the scheduled activities at the Teatrino in Rambles, and the participatory cantatas at the Palau de la Música Catalana.
All that outlines our profound commitment to the music education of which we are so proud. An education that spans from childhood to adult age. It is also an activity developed in the classrooms but also in the stage and every person in the audience. Music has been and will be, in the future, an instrument for the progress of a united and open society. That was the idea of the founders of the Liceu in 1837, and of those who since then have helped us to continue to keep on growing this great institution.