Cartagena will host the IV edition of the coPer_Acción festival from September 1 to 4, with performances and workshops by artists from different disciplines
In 2019, Unionense percussionist Andrés Navarro, who was training musically in Belgium (where he still lives), set out to create an inclusion festival around percussion, meet colleagues, share knowledge, create and ” expand together”. The wish was “to form a space where, above all, with percussion as the pivot, the different music genres could work together”. An idea that took shape in a conversation with Emilio Saura, a musician from Pozo Estrecho (Cartagena) “whom I started with when we were 10 or 12 years old and who had been in Rotterdam for several years at the time,” explains Andrés Navarro. . This is how coPer_Acción was born, a festival that will celebrate its fourth edition in Cartagena from 1 to 4 September.
The festival was first held in La Unión, in 2019. A year later, the pandemic broke out: «In 2020, we decided to run 3 micro-editions. We ran two, in La Unión and Bullas, while the third, in Totana, couldn’t run due to the changed restrictions. In that year we focused on workshops.
In 2021 coPer_Acción moved to Cartagena, which will also host this IV edition, in which “heterogeneity will reign”. The co-director emphasizes that on this occasion “we are going to bring together artists who don’t know each other”. Among the guests is Fabio da Silva «who is dedicated to capoeira, a Brazilian cultural manifestation, and uses specific instruments that he makes himself. We caught it here, but it will be between Murcia and the Czech Republic.” Another competitor is Selu Herráiz.
The sound artist and cultural mediator from Murcia, member of the music group Ruda together with Pablo Jordán, «works with percussion and electronics and is one of our most international artists. Arriving today from Berlin. On Friday it will be the turn of Juanfran Carrillo and his group Djembefó: «He is the best percussionist in Spain at the level of African music». These three guys, “are ‘machines’ in each of their disciplines and are going to meet each other for the first time at the festival, that’s the spirit we want to nurture,” says the percussionist.
Navarro is preparing the show ‘Percussionist songs’, to be held on September 1, in which he explores the concept of singing through a collection of contemporary pieces for percussion and voice. “This proposal is based on what I don’t like about contemporary music, where complexity is paramount. I go to the most basic music, the most popular, that would be the song».
Starting from the three basic elements that make up the preconceived idea of a song, the voice, the verse and the ephemeral, the elements are dissected during the ‘performance’ under the aesthetics of composers Christian Wolff, John Cage and Luciano Berio. A project in which he has Marcos López’s viola: «He is from Cartagena, he went to ‘Houston’ -USA- and he arrived a month ago. We crocheted it. This country is full of treasures,” he says proudly.
The dancer Ilaria Orlandini, the percussionists Alejandro Solano and also the pedagogue Juan Manuel Hermosilla -who will lead the batucada workshop- are other guests at the festival, in which the formation will again have an important weight. “This year we have students from Bullas, Totana, Calasparra, San Javier and Cartagena at the Ramón Alonso Luzzy Cultural Center. We are going to let our students know what we have discovered in our training.
Something that has cost me so much time and hours of research beyond what the conservatory has offered me; that sometimes doesn’t happen due to lack of time or lack of knowledge of the teachers”, says Navarro, who went to Belgium “because after graduating from the Superior Conservatory of Granada I wanted to train in contemporary music and I was asked to very good opportunity.
There are many more opportunities there than in Spain to give concerts and collaborate». In coPer_Acción « we tell it to children between 12 and 20 years old. We open other worlds for them.” A formation that will end with a traveling concert, on September 4, in which «the universes of each teacher come together: I will explain it contemporary, Alejandro Solano, winner of the Filón [a Mejor instrumentista, en 2020] from cante de las Minas, flamenco will work, there will be capoeira, electro-acoustics, music theater… it will be a very varied show».
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
