La Seu will host a great tribute to Joan Alcover and the hundred years of 'La Balanguera' set to music
The OCB culminates the Alcover Year commemorations with a concert on June 28, coinciding with the centenary of the first performance of Amadeu Vives's work in Mallorca
PalmaPalma Cathedral will be the setting this Sunday, June 28, for a major concert paying tribute to Joan Alcover, coinciding with the centenary of the first performance in Mallorca of La Balanguera set to music by Amadeu Vives. The event, organized by Obra Cultural Balear (OCB), is part of the commemorations of the Alcover Year, which marks one hundred years since the death of the Mallorcan poet.
The chosen date is no coincidence. On June 28, 1926, the Teatre Líric in Palma hosted the first performance in Mallorca of the musicalized La Balanguera, a few weeks after its premiere at the Palau de la Música in Barcelona. Chronicles from the time report that the work was received with a long and enthusiastic ovation from the audience.
The concert will begin at 8:00 PM and will have free admission until full capacity. The doors of the Cathedral will open twenty minutes earlier, at 7:40 PM.
The first part of the program will be dedicated to the symphony La serra de Tramuntana, by Antoni Mairata March, performed by the Jove Orquestra de les Illes Balears, the Orfeó Universitat de les Illes Balears, and the Coral de Sant Joan. Soprano Irene Gili will also participate, under the direction of Joan Barceló Antúnez.
The second part of the evening will revolve around La Balanguera set to music by Amadeu Vives. The Filharmònica Porrerenca, conducted by Joan Ramon Xamena Vidal, and the Xeremiers from the School of Music and Dances of Mallorca will perform.
L'Any Alcover
The event will be a continuation of the various events promoted by the OCB during Alcover Year. The most crowded took place on May 29, when thousands of people simultaneously sang La Balanguera in Plaça Major in Palma and in dozens of municipalities in Mallorca, in an initiative that also reached educational centers, cultural entities, and various public spaces on the island.
That mobilization became the first major simultaneous performance of the anthem of Mallorca throughout the island and served to assert the validity of Joan Alcover's work a century after his death. The event brought together institutions, entities, and civil society in a commemoration that transcended the strictly cultural sphere.
With the concert at the Cathedral, the OCB now focuses on the musical dimension of a poem that, with music by Amadeu Vives, would eventually become the official anthem of Mallorca and one of the most emblematic pieces of the island's popular culture.
