Les Arts hosts Fronteras, a festival that merges music and literature, featuring Manuel Vicent, Rodrigo Cortés, Sole Giménez, Elisabet Benavent, and Carmen Linares.

Les Arts 

• The festival will take place in Valencia on February 9, 10 and 11
• In-depth conversations, private meetings, workshops, recitals and live music centered around the fusion of both disciplines

Valencia (22.01.2023). Les Arts hosts the Fronteras Valencia festival, which brings together leading figures from the national art scene to explore the relationship between music and literature, with activities, meetings and live recitals featuring writer Manuel Vicent, writer and filmmaker Rodrigo Cortés, singer Sole Giménez, writer Elisabet Benavent, flamenco singer Carmen Linares and Vetusta Morla lyricist and guitarist Guille Galván, among others.

The event, which aims to offer a high-level professional cultural alternative and contribute to positioning Valencia as a national and international benchmark in the cultural field, will take place on February 9, 10 and 11, with activities spread between Les Arts, in the City of Arts and Sciences, and the city's network of municipal libraries, where workshops on composition, interpretation and cultural management will be held.

“We want to highlight and explore the relationship between artistic disciplines, discovering the music that nourishes writers and the literature that inspires musicians. The fusion between alphabet and musical notation has always enriched both disciplines,” says the festival's artistic director, Jesús Ruiz Mantilla.

The Councillor for Cultural Action of the Valencia City Council, Maite Ibáñez, highlighted that “we are a land of musical and literary creation, so the fusion between these two disciplines proposed by Fronteras is a truly novel concept that I am sure will resonate with the public.” She also noted that “we are delighted to incorporate the network of municipal libraries through the workshops, as they are places of inspiration and creativity. Furthermore, in this way, the festival reaches the neighborhoods and reinforces the educational role of libraries and their function as community meeting points.”

For his part, Jesús Iglesias Noriega framed the importance of Fronteras within the commitment to the opening and diversification of Les Arts as a leading cultural center.

“Each season we have taken another step forward by increasing and expanding genres, authors, creators, styles, and activities to transform this building into a place of curiosity that allows visitors to enjoy not only the artistic experience but also to reflect and contribute to the debate on issues that affect our environment. And taking another step also means embracing new formats like Fronteras, which maintain and enhance audience interest, enrich our programming, and open our doors to new audiences who have not yet visited us.”

A great conversation to kick off the festival

The festival's opening conversation will feature two leading figures in Valencian culture: Manuel Vicent and Sole Giménez. The journalist and the singer will take a generational and literary journey through the works that have most influenced their careers in a discussion moderated by journalist Lara Siscar.

On that same day, three simultaneous meetings will take place in separate libraries: cellist Helena Poggio, a member of the Quiroga Quartet, will explain the creative process with her instrument at the La Petxina library; Benjamín Prado, at the Carmelina Sánchez-Cutillas library, will reveal the secrets of composing his famous lyrics for Joaquín Sabina; and José María Sánchez Verdú will discuss literary inspiration in avant-garde musical composition at the Clara Santiró i Font library.

Fridays of film, literature and music at Les Arts

Saturday's program at Les Arts will feature four other major conversations. First, filmmaker and writer Rodrigo Cortés and pianist Juan Pérez Floristán will discuss rhythm and tempo in their original and groundbreaking works in an event moderated by journalist Carmen Velasco.

In addition, Berklee School Dean Simone Pilon and Jesús Ruiz Mantilla will discuss Woodstock and the counterculture and its impact on teaching.

At the same time, the Valencian coliseum will offer a three-way meeting between the lyricist and guitarist of Vetusta Morla, Guille Galván, the writer Lucía Lijtmaer and the chronicler Fernando Navarro to talk about rock, pop culture and sources of inspiration.

Finally, pianist Rosa Torres-Pardo will offer a live recital accompanied by the verses and poetry of Antonio Lucas and Luisa Castro, in a poetic-musical evening that will be introduced by journalist Miguel Ángel Hoyos.

The workshop on Friday the 10th will be led by Daniel Broncano, director of the Música en Segura festival, and will focus on how to organize and manage a music festival today, given the vast array of options and alternatives available. The workshop will be held at the Patraix-Azorín library.

Saturday with more live art

The final day will feature more literary and live music events and recitals at Les Arts. Popular novelist Elisabet Benavent – known as Beta Coqueta – will reveal how music permeates and shapes the rhythm of her well-known novels.

Also, flamenco singer Carmen Linares and poet Antonio Lucas will bring a deeply moving and heartfelt touch to their encounter. The most recent Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts recipient and the poet will discuss emotion, song, and poetry. From this emotional perspective, writer Manuel Vilas, recent winner of the Nadal Prize, and guitarist Pablo Sáinz Villegas will also engage in conversation, with memory and poetry as their backdrop, moderated by journalist Joan Carles Martí.

The festival will have a musical closing: Rosa Torres-Pardo will once again sit down at the piano to accompany the recital of the poets Carlos Marzal and Raquel Lanseros, while GuitarCello (Fernando Curiel and Antonio Martín Acevedo) will bring to the classical strings the music of some of the most emblematic groups of the 20th century.

In Saturday's workshop, soprano Raquel Andueza will give the keys to using the most delicate musical instrument, the voice itself, in the Arrancapins Eduard Escalante library.

Share a coffee with the authors

As a complement to all the activities at Les Arts, a series of one-on-one meetings will be held in small groups and by reservation with Manuel Vicent, Sole Giménez, Rodrigo Cortés, Guille Galván, Lucía Lijtmaer and Carmen Linares.

All activities are free and open to the public until capacity is reached, with priority given to reservations made through the event website, festivalfronteras.com. Reservations are required for workshops and author talks.

The cultural proposal is organized by the Department of Cultural Action of the Valencia City Council, Les Arts and produced by La Fábrica.