An unmissable event for chamber music lovers, the Pablo Casals festival takes place until August 12, 2022 in various locations in the Prades region (Pyrénées-Orientales).
Created in 1950, the Pablo Casals festival is one of the oldest in France. Faithful to the humanist values of the cellist who created it, the new edition brings together classical music and commitment.
At the helm of this new edition, Pierre Bleuse who for his second year at the helm of the festival has concocted an eclectic program but always in the spirit of the Catalan maestro“Every day when I prepare for this festival I think of Casals, not to reproduce what he did but to inspire me with his soul and his humanity”, says the conductor.
The ambition remains the same: to make this summer highlight a platform for exchanges and musical encounters, a setting for excellence, a springboard for the talents of tomorrow. “This year we have five evenings in the middle of the festival, Brazilian music from Yamandu Costa, Camille Bertault’s jazz quartet, we have a lot of diversity and of course chamber music concerts in this sublime abbey of Saint-Michel de Cuxa”, rejoices again Pierre Bleuse.
Each year, the festival highlights the big names in chamber music but also young talents. It welcomes in residence young instrumentalists from all over the world, who perform in concert in the villages around Prades. A meeting turned towards others and carrying humanist values, like the one who created the festival, the famous musician Pablo Casals (1876-1973).
Well known when the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, he fled his country and found refuge in Prades. He retired from public and artistic life, refusing to play in protest to Franco’s dictatorship. As early as 1933, he had also refused to play in Germany.
In 1950, he broke his silence and agreed to take part in the commemorations of the bicentenary of Bach’s death in Prades. This is the first edition of the festival. Each year, it will then invite the greatest performers of the time to make it a hotspot for classical music. He himself participated in it until the age of 90.
The Pablo Casals festival continues in Prades until August 12, 2022