10,000 turn out for Lledoners concert

Around 9,000 peo­ple yes­ter­day at­tended a con­cert in which 500 singers and mu­si­cians per­formed Han­del’s Mes­siah out­side the Lle­doners prison. The aim was to show sup­port at Christ­mas­time to the seven pro-in­de­pen­dence lead­ers locked up in the prison, as well as Carme For­cadell and Do­lors Bassa, both in women’s pris­ons. De­spite the cold, the au­di­ence sat in si­lence lis­ten­ing to the con­cert by 450 am­a­teur singers and 50 pro­fes­sional mu­si­cians, con­ducted by Al­fred Cañamero.

The con­cert began at 12 noon, when the pris­on­ers leave their cells. Ap­plause was avoided to en­sure the music reached the jailed lead­ers Jordi Sánchez, Jordi Cuixart, Jordi Tu­rull, Raül Romeva, Josep Rull, Joaquim Forn and Oriol Jun­queras. Spokes­woman for the or­gan­is­ers, Eulàlia Espona, said “in­di­vid­u­als had set up the event in the same way that the coun­try can bring to­gether in­di­vid­u­als to over­come very im­por­tant chal­lenges.”