Around 2.000 people have enjoyed the concerts of the 27 edition of the Castell Music Festival, scheduled for both the stage of the castle and the Off Festival from the Valgamedios square. The program of this edition has contemplated national and international proposals and, of course, groups of Valencian music, one of the premises on which the festival is based from its origin.
It has also continued with the recovery of the collas programming of dolçainers, an important movement of recovery and promotion of the Valencian instrument par excellence, with the performance of the group of Xàbia Xirimitab's, under the direction of dolçainer José Alemany, in the Off Festival from the Valgamedios square.
The festival started on Monday 16 in July with the participation of the Percussion Group Ondaratakk, who made a parade through the center of the city, displaying the frenetic rhythms of the drums and announcing the start of the festival.
Also in the Valgamediós square there was an extraordinary concert by the singer APA, accompanied by the musicians Ricardo Esteve, Jesús Gimeno, Eduard Navarro and Lucho Aguilar, presenting his work Flamencianes, a musical salad of styles where, starting from the Valencian tradition, it relates it to flamenco and Mediterranean musics in general, including songs by Ovidi Montllor, Paco Muñoz, Cifu and other traditional re-elaborated Valencian ones. APA's voice, clear and powerful, moved a dedicated audience.
Already in the Castle, the festival continued with the group Nes, a young group formed in València and integrated by great musicians with a long and solvent career: Nesrine Belmokh, singer and Franco-Algerian cellist, Matthieu Saglio, French cellist and David Gadea, Valencian percussionist (collaborator of Sole Giménez, Josemi Carmona or Ximo Tebar).
The festival continued with the singer Carmen Linares, who gave a lesson in the most traditional song of flamenco, with some sublime pieces that put the audience on their feet. The program, nothing habitual, was shelling the poetry Miguel Hernández, intermingling poems of other poets already musicalized and that gave much consistency to a torn concert. It was accompanied by two guitars, two voices of choirs and palmeros and by the flamenco dancer Vanesa Aibar, who managed to conquer the audience with her elegant and at the same time energetic dance.
The festival was bid farewell to one of the Balkan brass bands par excellence, conducted by the legendary trumpet master Boban Markovic. His music, played by a powerful band of twelve musicians, is defined by his own gypsy lineage, although it is also nourished by other musical and cultural sources closely related to the Roma traditions. The concert started with the quietest rhythms and it was in growing to finish with the whole audience dancing to the rhythm of the frenetic music. A luxury auction for a luxury festival.
