The audience slowly made their way along the village paths at dusk, guided by the music and by a lighting intervention that turned the journey itself into an essential part of the artistic experience. The landscape, the traditional architecture, and the live sound ceased to be separate elements and came together into a single scenic gesture.

The programme combined early music performed on the theorbo, instrumental interventions along the route, and a visual action that accompanied the audience's passage between the hórreo and the church. More than a concert, a collective experience was generated where walking, listening, and watching were all part of the same dramaturgy.

Days later, this experience was captured in an account published by the cultural magazine Hombre Superfluo, which described with great sensitivity what was lived that night in Leiguarda:

«Josefina had left the piano and was holding Eliot, their son barely a year old, who watched everything without yet being able to discern anything of what he saw. Even so, I like to think that what he lived through will help him understand as an adult what is truly worthwhile: the peace of listening to his father's music or his mother's smile. He will not remember me, nor his distant gaze with the pacifier in his mouth, thinking: “Who might this be?”. It would be lovely if, in the future, the baby took up the baton from his parents and went on organising this same festival of music that grows ever more classical, thanks to the passing of time.

After it ended, we were able to chat with Pepe, Josefina, and the rest of the musicians while eating vegetarian empanada and drinking cider beneath the family hórreo.

If a few months ago we lived a midwinter night's dream, we now returned to the original midsummer night's dream, thanks to a new and well-judged proposal from Noe. On the way home, we saw in the distance the glowing orbs resting on the wall where we had left them. They would switch themselves off during the small hours.»

«Pepe told us that during the COVID pandemic, Guillermo and Josefina bought the family house and have since been organising this classical music festival called ADAR. They traded the city of New York for a small Asturian village, he a flautist and she a pianist.

Shortly before reaching the church of Leiguarda, we were struck by an image that looked like a giant spiderweb some ten metres tall, which turned out to be a projection Guillermo had set up onto a tree, further confirming the artist's versatility that Pepe had mentioned.

We set all the glowing orbs down in the atrium of the chapel and went inside. In the middle of the empty church, several concrete core samples used in mining surveys, arranged over a circle of earth, symbolised the search for the mother lode, while also resembling a felled forest.»

«We also had an advantage: we knew he lived in Leiguarda, and one need only see the two of them to understand that, more than father and daughter, they seem like twins: their gestures, the way they walk, their principles, their kindness.

Before hearing Josefina at the piano, we had been surprised by a few pieces played on a Baroque instrument I did not know, called the theorbo. It resembles a lute, but with a very long neck like that of a sitar. It was played by Nacho, a young man who would look perfectly at home on TikTok, in a Caravaggio painting, at Lincoln Center, or in the tiny hórreo where his instrument barely fit.

We kept walking beneath the Asturian orbayu, which was up to its usual tricks on a somewhat overcast night. The lights guided us like torches, reminiscent of Fernando Alfaro's journey of redemption:

Look at that row of torches going one after another on a lunar journey…

As we left the room where we had just heard Arabesque No. 1, we ran into Pepe. I was holding in my hand a large glowing orb that I had to carry through Leiguarda, along with ten other volunteers.

We went out to hear Almudena play the viola. After applauding once more, we could finally solve the mystery.

Pepe couldn't quite place our faces, but Noe pointed out that Cris has only one father, though he has many friends.»

Artistic Credits

Musicians
Nacho Laguna (theorbo)
Jone de la Fuente (violin)
Almudena Arribas (viola)
Guillermo Laporta (flute)
Diego Arribas (visual artist)