Itinera, the music festival that crosses mountains and valleys

Itinera is exclusive for a few months Music caravan among mountains and valleys. The Catalan festival, nationalized from Valencia, La Mancha and Navarre, among other regions, has concluded with its 2023 edition and has already presented its 2024 edition. Itinera has been organizing since April 104 concerts For all Valencian municipalities at risk of population decline Two aims were undertaken here: to bring culture closer to areas geographically disconnected from big cities and their cultural agendas, and on the other hand, to mobilize the municipality whose flag it planted for a few hours.

The closing of this festival was held in Serranía de Cuenca. Tragacete, Vega del Codorno and Huélamo were the host municipalities that hosted talks on depopulation, rurality and culture, and of course they put on four musical performances that ended yesterday afternoon. Fran Palazón & Batio, collaborators of Ara Malikian and C. Tangana.

Reflection sought throughout three day intervention The coming together of people from different cultural backgrounds and the rural world revolves around the harmony of music and art events in areas at risk of depopulation. explained this Marcel MarataHe is the organizer of this festival, which turned the cultural agenda of Catalan micro-towns upside down and brought jazz, soul, folk and rock to these municipalities. From there it was exported to the Valencian Community. Juan Benages and then to Castilla-La Mancha Masters FoundationSponsors of this meeting in Cuenca, together with the Chair of Population Reduction at the University of Cuenca.

Marco Antonio de la OssaThe university professor examined the concept of ‘festival’ and its corollary ‘festivalitis’ and how all this fits into a rural setting where the celebration of these gatherings is an economic and social opportunity, free from overcrowding. towns. Meanwhile, the Tourism technician at the Population Reduction Office of the Valencian Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, Raquel Gomez, He touched upon the unique characteristics of the Valencian Community, where the difference between the coast and the interior is absolute. The disparity in access to culture in a town or city just an hour away is stark. “We have to look away and see a pull and a magnet in the culture to create other activities and businesses that will attract people to live there who will contribute taxes and rehabilitate their homes,” Gómez explained.

In the same sense, he stated that culture “fills the gaps created and eliminates the feeling of foreignness.” insulation but bringing culture there means collaborative management: we must trust the people,” he said, referring to plans or projects managed remotely by larger Administrations that know little or nothing about the reality of rural municipalities.

President Association of Microcities of Catalonia, Mario Urrea“A city cannot be treated the same as a micro-city, for example, urban planning laws regarding green areas are of no use to us, because we have forests,” he said, calling for his own regulations for towns.

For Urrea, what is important is neither population decline nor repopulation; rather, it is about finding regional balance, and from here the HAMS Project was born: ‘Habitatge, Activitat econòmica, Mobilitat i Serveis’. “Without housing and economic activity, we have nothing to do, that’s why people migrated in the 60s, and mobility should be both physical and digital, and services, of which culture is one of them,” Urrea said.

Another key was given by the president of the Micropueblos association. We must take advantage of the potential of each region: “If it has a forest, create dynamism there, but we cannot bet on what we do not have,” he concluded.

And in taking up this challenge, the intervention of Miquel Tugores, president of the DARTE Foundation, Mallorcan by birth, Madrid by adoption and Soria by profession, explained how he transformed Medinaceli – “Paradise city” – into the epicenter of the arts. In the province of Soria.

An abandoned palace was turned into a museum

He transformed the Doge’s Palace into an art exhibition hall in the broadest sense: plastic, but also hosting theater or music. “We are trying to create tourism through the rehabilitation of this palace in a way that creates dynamism, and this is an idea that can be exported to other municipalities,” he explained.

Thus, Medinaceli Opera Festival, contemporary art exhibitions, International Song Music Festival, Film Festival, Photography Festival and Folk Festival were born. And he went even further: with the investment of eight partners, a mansion was purchased and rehabilitated on the spot where the Erotic Museum, unique in all its autonomy, was established.

The Itinera Iberia forum, held since Wednesday in the mountains of Cuenca, has ended, but has given way to something better: a new edition of this festival that compensates for the multicultural lack of these municipalities, where the administration and its services are not always within reach.

Closing the edition with more music

Itinera will not return home when the Cuenca forum ends: he is taking the first steps of the 2024 edition, which is scheduled to start in April. However, there will be six concerts between today and tomorrow. Valltores (Zaragoza), Titaguas (Valencia), Vallbona de les Monges (Lleida), Villamantilla (Madrid) and Aguilar de Campoo (Palencia).