The 29th Palma Early Music Festival is now underway: discover this year's concerts

The 29th Palma Early Music Festival kicked off this past Thursday, November 4, with a performance by the members of the Pérgamo Ensemble and will feature a total of five concerts through November 28.

The Palma City Council has stated in a press release that all concerts will be held on Thursdays, except for the last one, as the closing concert will take place on the last Saturday of the month at Mallorca Cathedral.

Concert Thursdays

The festival kicked off this Thursday at 8:00 p.m. at the Santa Margarita military church with the concert “The Art of Playing,” featuring Guillermo Turina (baroque cello), Alberto Jara (baroque double bass), and Eva del Campo (harpsichord), all members of the Pérgamo Ensemble.

Next Thursday, November 12, at 8:30 p.m., the festival will move to the Church of Nostra Senyora de la Mercè for the concert “Ad Lucem. A Musical Dialogue Between Tradition and Innovation,’ featuring Hugo Bolívar (countertenor) and Belisiana Ruis (viola da mano and theorbo).

The proposal offers a journey through the process of musical transformation in Europe from the late 16th to the early 17th century, a period that marks the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque.

The program includes works by Tomás Luis de Victoria, a Renaissance composer who excelled in sacred music, and composers representing the early Baroque period in Italy, such as Monteverdi and Schütz.

Next Thursday, November 19, also at 8:30 p.m., the Mallorcan ensemble Ensemble Tramuntana will perform the concert “Sons of the Universe: From Chaos to Passion,” a program that spans Bach, young talent, the Baroque era, and classical drama.

This concert features works by Jean Féry-Rebel, specifically “Le Chaos” (an excerpt from his work “Les Élèments”) and “Les Caractères de la Danse”; Bach, from whom an excerpt from the “Orchestral Suite No. 3” will be performed; and Luigi Boccherini, with his “Symphony No. 6,” popularly known as “La casa del Diavolo.”

Under the direction of Barry Sargent, Ensemble Tramuntana is a chamber orchestra founded in 2014 that uses large-scale period instruments and specializes in French, German, and Italian composers.

The concert on Thursday, November 26, at 8:00 p.m. at the Church of Sant Felip Nerí has been organized in collaboration with the Fryderyk Chopin National Institute and will showcase the talent of the young Polish pianist Maciej Skzeczkowski.

Skzeczkowski specializes in the harpsichord. He was born in 2001, and his career includes numerous awards, both in Poland and abroad.

His most recent award was presented to him in 2023, when he won first prize at the Early Music Competition held in the Belgian city of Bruges.

During his performance, he will perform pieces by Domenico Scarlatti, a Neapolitan composer who lived most of his life in Spain, where he died in 1757, and Antonio Soler Ramos, a composer of the late Baroque period, born in the town of Olot (Girona) in 1729.

A fitting finale

The festival’s closing ceremony will take place on Saturday, November 28, at 8:00 p.m., at the Cathedral of Mallorca, featuring a performance by members of the Capella de La Seu and the Joch de Ministrils del Consell de Mallorca.

The concert, which will feature an innovative format, will consist of three parts. It is titled “Actes extraordinaris” and will showcase two ensembles that have shaped the evolution of music in Mallorca.

Its repertoire consists of more than 400 scores of religious music, ranging from representative pieces of Gregorian chant to contemporary works.

Currently, the Capella is home to 20 singers with extensive experience in choral and solo performance, who perform both a cappella and with organ, piano, and orchestra accompaniment.

For its part, Joch de Ministrils is a historic musical ensemble, the heir to a centuries-old European tradition dedicated to serving institutions with the aim of lending a more solemn atmosphere to civil, military, and religious ceremonies.