Cultural oasis in the heart of the city

Al­ready un­der­way, Barcelona’s Pe­dralbes Fes­ti­val is rem­i­nis­cent of sim­i­lar events held in the Em­pordà area that fea­ture mu­si­cal artists of high renown per­form­ing in priv­i­leged sur­round­ings to fans who gen­er­ally have some pur­chas­ing power. In par­tic­u­lar, it is the set­ting that sets the fes­ti­val apart, held as it is in the land­scaped gar­dens of the Royal Palace of Pe­dralbes.

Fea­tur­ing music stars both past and pre­sent, the line-up is em­i­nently eclec­tic and post­mod­ern, and this year’s edi­tion has a lit­tle of every­thing. The billing goes from a major star of bossa nova in the form of Gilberto Gil to artists whose ca­reers span half a cen­tury, such as the leg­endary Beach Boys, while reg­u­lar vis­i­tor to the Cata­lan cap­i­tal, film di­rec­tor Woody Allen and his New Or­leans Jazz Band led by the group’s mu­si­cal di­rec­tor, Eddy Davis, sold out on June 18.

Also early on, the fes­ti­val fea­tured an es­tab­lished favourite, Diego El Cigala, who was fol­lowed by Joan Dausà, Los Plan­e­tas, and the Niger­ian Jacob Banks with Corinne Bai­ley Rae.

It is now al­ready too late this year to see Izal, or The Gipsy Kings led by their founders Nico­las Reyes and Tonino Baliardo, while Ana Belén, Ramon Mirabet, the unique Gior­gio Mo­roder, gui­tarist and singer Christo­pher Cross, blues­man Gary Clark Jr, and De Broad­way à Hol­ly­wood have also moved on.

But July be­gins with the el­e­gant soul of Joss Stone and her amaz­ing African band, fol­lowed by the Celtic re­meet be­tween Gali­cian Car­los Núñez and Irish band The Chief­tains on July 4. Also fea­tur­ing in the sec­ond half of the fes­ti­val is the three di­men­sional con­cert by leg­ends Kraftwerk, Juanes, Il Divo and, the one and only Roger Hodg­son, who will re­play the time­less clas­sics of Su­per­tramp in his char­ac­ter­is­tic falsetto.

Carla Bruni kicked the fes­ti­val off on June 5, and she was fol­lowed by an­other top in­ter­na­tional diva, Mariah Carey, while the Étoiles i Solistes de l’Ópera de París pro­vided clas­si­cal bal­let from the best tal­ents the world-class com­pany could muster. But what­ever the show, at the Fes­ti­val Jardins de Pe­dralbes the spec­ta­tor is al­ways as­sured a pleas­ant evening watch­ing the high­est qual­ity tal­ent in a re­lax­ing and peace­ful oasis amid the bus­tle of a major city.