From 4 to 8 December, the «Ciudad de León» Auditorium will host the 15th «Fundación MonteLeón» International Chamber Music Festival, with five concerts and the participation of young musicians of national and international renown.
The programme for this fifteenth edition was announced at an event held at León City Hall, attended by Andrea Gutiérrez, manager of the Fundación MonteLeón; Elena Aguado, Councillor for Cultural Action and Promotion; Carmen Mayo, the festival’s artistic director, and Luis Javier Baza, representing Caja Rural.
A special, retrospective edition
This will be a special, retrospective edition marking the festival’s 15th anniversary. It brings back musicians who began their professional careers as young talents at the León festival and who today are regular guests at leading concert halls and festivals on the national and international circuit:
Cuarteto Gerhard — Friday 4 December. Played at the festival in 2012.
Trío Rodin — Saturday 5 December. First appeared at the festival in 2013.
Kebyart, saxophone quartet — Sunday 6 December. Played in 2019.
Paloma Friedhoff, soprano, and Leyre Lisarri, piano — Monday 7 December. Made their festival debut in 2016.
Mon-Puo Lee, Spanish-Taiwanese cellist — Tuesday 8 December. Also made his debut in 2016.
Every one of them a guest artist
As the festival’s artistic director, Carmen Mayo, put it: «We wanted to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Festival MonteLeón with a selection of the young ensembles who have been with us in previous editions and who have gone on to build brilliant careers. It will be genuinely moving to hear them again at the festival after so many years, now as established artists, with the satisfaction of knowing that our festival has met its aim of promoting the careers of outstanding young chamber music ensembles and supporting them in their first professional years. So this year there will be no single guest ensemble: every one of them will be our guest artists».
She added: «The 15th Festival MonteLeón will offer works from every period and style. It will also pay tribute to Manuel de Falla and Pau Casals on the 150th anniversary of their birth and, as in previous editions, there will be works by outstanding women composers: Caroline Shaw, Clara Schumann, Amy Beach and Kaija Saariaho».