¡Viva Barcelona! Visca Catalunya!
© Photo: David Iliff. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0
In November 2011, and for the first time on medivi.tv, medici.tv broadcasted a performance of the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya (OBC)! The orchestra’s director, Pablo González, conducted a programme characterized by musical lyricism and melancholia. And nothing could have been better than the Symphony No. 6, "Pathétique" by Tchaikovsky, and the famous Adagio by Barber to express these feelings. It is true that forty years and an entire ocean keep these two works separate, but they both express an impression of timeless eternity. Between Tchaikovsky and Barber the orchestra performed a piece of the contemporary Spanish composer Jesús Torres, from Saragosse.
The event was a success. The recording was the first live webcast of a concert given by a Spanish orchestra and a unique opportunity to celebrate the incredible qualities of the Barcelona Orchestra. Moreover, this concert was the occasion to make a flying visit to one of the most beautiful and cultured cities in the world: Barcelona. After this concert, there was Vasily Petrenko and Midori live on April 14, and the closing concert of the orchestra's season featuring Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde.
Latest live webcast: on November 17, 2012, French actress Marion Cotillard joins the OBC for a performance of Honegger's oratorio Joan of Arc at the stake. Stay tuned!
L'Auditori
The Auditori is a modern building of 42,000 square metres designed by the architect Rafael Moneo, opened on 22nd March 1999. It is in the centre of the new pole of urban development of plaça de les Glòries, which brings together the three widest and longest avenues in the city (Diagonal, Gran Via and Meridiana) near the old centre of the city, its ‘Avenue’, next to the National Theatre, Glòries junction, the opening of the Diagonal on to the sea, district 22 and the Forum area.
The building combines sober external modernity with Sala 1 Pau Casals for 2,200 spectators, Sala 2 Oriol Martorell, with 600 places, Sala 3 Tete Montoliu with 400 places and the newly opened Sala 4 Alicia de Larrocha, with 152 seats. In the central access atrium, a monumental cubic glass light has been built in the shape of an impluvium, decorated with sketched paintings by Pablo Palazuelo. The acoustics of the halls has been carefully studied within the project by the specialised engineer Higini Arau.
In the same musical complex, there are the centres of the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya and the Museu de la Música. This makes the Auditori a focus of musical life in the city in the different fields of divulgation, teaching and research.
