07.08.2014 - 17:47
Annually, Edinburgh International Festival organises theatre, dance, music and opera performances form around the world. This year, the internationally-renowned Catalan composer and conductor Jordi Savall will be participating, alongside Hespèrion XXI, Le Concert des Nations and La Capella Reial de Catalunya. On Monday 12 August at 7.30pm, the distinguished musician will play the viola de gamba –his speciality– and will conduct the last three ensembles mentioned in the “War and peace in Baroque Europe: From the Thirty Years War to the Peace of Ultrecht” concert. Thus, the performance will remember some years in European history as part of the festival’s commemoration to the Great War centenary and the 20 years of South African freedom and democracy.
Jordi Savall will also perform at the 2nd edition of Edinburgh International Culture Summit. The Catalan musician and its Hespèrion XXI ensemble will be playing early music at the opening ceremony on August 10. Their performance will welcome the participants to the forum for the discussion of the power, position and profile of the arts, culture and the creative industries.
In 2008, Savall was named UE Ambassador for Intercultural Dialogue, an international recognition that he received alongside his wife, the Catalan soprano Montserrat Figueras (1942-2011). Savall considers music as a way to achieve understanding, as a comfort in peacetime and a method to provoke fight in wartime.
