Candela Puigbò and Joana Santandreu, students at the Liceu Conservatory, performed on 16 September at the Cervantes Institute in Kraków in a concert paying tribute to Pau Casals to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth. The concert forms part of the institutional collaboration between the Liceu Conservatory Foundation and the Cervantes Institute in Kraków.
With Candela Puigbò on the cello and Joana Santandreu on the violin, the concert programme included music by Johann S. Bach and Luigi Boccherini, two composers greatly admired by Casals. It also featured pieces by Benjamin Britten and Reinhold Glière, two composers who undoubtedly wrote for the cello with Casals’s contributions to the instrument in mind. The concert concluded with “El Cant dels Ocells”, which Pau Casals had turned into an international anthem. It is worth noting that the very cello played by Candela Puigbò, a Marc Laberte (1921), once belonged to Casals. It has been loaned to Candela Puigbò by the Pau Casals Foundation.
The concert was organised by the Cervantes Institute in Kraków as part of its ‘Young Musical Talents’ programme, aimed at showcasing young Spanish musicians who are beginning to make their mark on the international scene. The concert was also supported by the Spanish Embassy in Poland. Víctor Estapé, academic director of the Liceu Conservatory, took part in the presentation of the concert and highlighted Pau Casals’s connection with the Liceu Conservatory, where he taught the cello between 1896 and 1899.
As part of the visit, Víctor Estapé, academic director of the Conservatory, and Beatriz Hernanz, director of the Cervantes Institute in Kraków, met with the rector of the Akademia Muzyczna IM. Krzysztof Penderecki in Kraków, Mariusz Sielski, and the Vice-Rector for Teaching and International Cooperation, Piotr Rózanski, to discuss future activities and projects within the framework of the Erasmus+ collaboration agreement.
Photos: Cervantes Institute in Kraków