La Heroica, with its wonderful balconies, overflowing with bougainvillea in bloom in intense fuchsia, purple and maroon; the golden cups of gold, the pale jasmine and the colorful geraniums were the perfect setting for the celebration of the sixteenth edition of the Cartagena International Music Festival, which was entitled The Color of Music. It can be said that Cartagena was taken over by the colors of music and flowers.
And it is that each note has, without a doubt, not only a sound, but also a color. There are melodies that we can easily identify with the passionate red of fire, others that take us to the darkness of nocturnal blues, the grays of a storm or the delicate lilacs and pinks of a sunrise.
This was the proposal of the Festival; identify in each piece, in each movement, in each note, the color that awakens in us according to the feeling and perception that it produces in us. A wonderful exercise in concentration and imagination, which increased the pleasure of listening to master concerts.
The Festival, as has been the case for 16 years, took over the city with wonderful presentations in some of the most emblematic spaces of the Heroic City, the Adolfo Mejía Theater, the chapels of the Santa Clara and Santa Teresa hotels and the Palace of the Proclamation.
This year, due to the pandemic, preference was given to the presentation of chamber music, avoiding large orchestras. Magnificent idea, because these small groups of musicians, made up of duets, trios, quartets, rarely more than eight people, which originated in presentations of family, or musician friends, have a great intimacy that allows the listener to approach and identify with each one of the artists, in a very special way.
The repertoire, mostly from the 19th century, was divided by country. We hear composers from Germany and Austria: Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms; from France, Debussy, Fauré and the wonderful, if little known, Franck. Italy delighted us with Rossini, including his monumental “Small Solemn Mass”, with the participation of the choir of the Colombian Opera. From Russia we hear: Borodin, Tchaikovsky and Glinka, then Eastern European countries with works by Dvorak and Smetana. On the afternoon of January 5, we were delighted by Rachmaninov’s elegiac trio for violin, cello and piano, performed by Andrey Baranov, a sublime violin virtuoso.
A quartet from the Young Philharmonic of Colombia and the impressive works of eight Colombian composers were also presented: Rozo Contreras, Morales Pinto, Luis Quinitiva, Vicente Garrido, Lucho Bermúdez, Candelario González and Ludsen Martinus, performed by the Cartagena Symphony Orchestra in the Getsemaní auditorium of the Convention Center.
The concerts were followed by tasty dinners with the participation of chefs from Cartagena and important restaurants in the country. In one of them we shared a table with two fascinating artists, the first violin and the viola of the Modigliani quartet, French, both delighted with the beauty and joy of Cartagena.
This is a worldwide festival, whose organizer and founder Julia Salvi and the team of professionals who accompany her do not rest for a minute so that everything turns out perfect. Cartagena owes an immense debt to the Salvi Foundation, which has placed it among the most important and unforgettable musical events on the continent
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