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General Director

CARTAGENA COLOMBIA

Miscena

Since 2018, Antonio Miscenà has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Training Center of the National Learning Service (SENA) of Colombia. In his nine years as director, the Festival has positioned itself as one of the major cultural events in Latin America, with programs developed each year around a theme.

Antonio Miscená

In June 2021, after a fifteenth edition dedicated to the history of Italian opera, we announced that in 2022 there would be an edition entirely dedicated to the music of Rossini. As has been usual in the last two years, what was our intention and a project that was already advanced in its organization, has had to be replaced by another.

The Rossini edition had to count on the presence of the Orchestra of the Teatro Comunale of Bologna (about 80 members), of the singers, of the technicians to set The Barber of Seville, the transfer of the scenographies and many other things. Despite the joint desire of the Italian and Colombian artists, the institutions of the two countries and the expectations of the public, after many meetings it was considered appropriate to postpone the Rossini project for 2023 and seek other solutions more in line with these complicated days for 2022.

From this need was born the idea, in August 2021, of an edition dedicated on chamber music: an edition that has as protagonists small musical groups offering the music of the golden age of the genre: the nineteenth century, the Romantic period. We could say that it is an edition appropriate for the current times.

This could also be the natural continuation of the edition named The Beautiful and the Sublime (2020) in which the chosen author was Schubert, one of the first Romantics.

So in a very short time I laid the foundations of what would become “The Color of Sound: Instrumental Chamber Music of the 19th Century”. In this seven-day itinerary, starting with Schubert, I intend to offer the Festival audience, through chamber music, a musical panorama of one of the most interesting and fascinating periods in the history of music.

Following a traditional approach that foresees the subdivision by countries of the music produced in the 19th century, I assigned to each day of the festival the music of a country: the first two days for Austria and Germany, the third day for France, the fourth for Italian music, the fifth for Russian music, the sixth session will be dedicated to the Eastern countries and the seventh to Colombia, although Colombian chamber music is a post-19th century phenomenon.

Of course, as inevitably happens, when preparing a festival program, one is forced to schematize and leave out important phenomena that would deserve to be included. For example, music from England, Northern Europe, Spain and many other regional expressions, which are very important musical currents for understanding the so-called phenomenon of national schools in 19th century Europe.

For the public who wants to know more, these gaps could be an additional incentive to make music a constant interest, not only limited to the duration of the festival.

Happy listening and happy festival 2022!