Festival ADAR · Belmonte de Miranda
Josefina and Guillermo: one day they play in New York, the next in a granary in Leiguarda
A pair of Spanish musicians have settled in Belmonte de Miranda, from where they continue their international projects and where they have launched a festival to bring the arts to rural areas.
The pandemic left two new residents in Leiguarda, a village of little more than twenty inhabitants in the municipality of Belmonte de Miranda. Two professional musicians who brought in their suitcase a whole art project for rural Asturias. After eleven years living and working in New York —a home base they keep for half the year— the Palencia-born pianist Josefina Urraca and the Huesca-born Guillermo Laporta became convinced that it was time to find a house in a rural area where they could settle for almost half the year.
Their search across Asturias ended with a complete package of «estate, house, stable, hayloft, hórreo…», one of the many awaiting restoration in the region, which they have gradually been adapting to their needs. The old stable is already a rehearsal room, something that was indispensable.
And without letting much time pass, they also set their dream in motion, one that has a name and is officially registered: Asociación para el Desarrollo de las Artes en el Medio Rural (ADAR). A foundation from which to launch musical projects in the settings of that «emptied Asturias», drawing on new technologies to revitalise village life and, with them, bring the living arts closer to audiences who are little or not at all accustomed to them.
Hanging from that idea are many more, all aligned: to encourage rural tourism through culture; to connect and showcase areas of Asturias to audiences around the world; to attract artists from international cultural currents to new landscapes; and even to offer musical residencies in their hórreo.
The most tangible expression of all this is the Festival ADAR, which will run from 4 to 13 August and will feature programming in Leiguarda, Grado, El Franco and Colunga.
It is not a typical festival; we never conceived of it that way. The idea is to programme concerts and activities that act as a lever for rural development, linking different artistic proposals to these areas and to the beauty of the region.
The festival, they explain, includes classical music concerts, talks, interviews, lectures, and commissions to composers and visual artists. So there will be music, visual concerts, video mapping, multidisciplinary theatre, street art and stage design. And they will roll out their offerings at the As Quintas auditorium (El Franco), the Museo de las Ayalgas in Silviella (Belmonte); the Capilla de los Dolores, the Palacio de Fontela and the Palacio de Miranda-Valdecarzana (in Grado), the Sala Loreto (Colunga), and even the Campo de la Iglesia in Leiguarda, the promoters' own home and the Panera Casantos.
Music is universal, and we know that with a good connection between Leiguarda and New York, the projects need not differ so much.
Original text published in La Nueva España.