The Early Music Festival "La Vila del Joy" presents its 8th edition with the most ambitious programme of those held to date. The Church of the Assumpció in La Vila Joiosa, a 16th century Catalan Gothic building, will be the auditorium for exquisite performances by some of the most in-vogue musicians, such as the violinist Amandine Beyer, the countertenor Xavier Sabata, the specialist in Sufi music Ali Keeler, the cornetist Gebhard David, the harpsichordist Dani Espasa, and the specialist in oriental lutes Efrén López.

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The opening concert will take place on Saturday 17 September, when we will be able to enjoy the exquisite voice of Èlia Casanova, one of the most international Valencian sopranos in the field of early music. Èlia, together with the group LUCENTUM XVI, will perform a programme dedicated to the female presence in the music of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, with a compilation of polyphony from the songbooks of Barcelona, Palacio, Montecassino and Colombina, combined with beautiful arias by two excellent early Baroque composers, Francesca Caccini and Barbara Strozzi.

 

On Saturday 24 September it will be the turn of the French violinist Amandine Beyer and her group GLI INCOGNITI. Amandine is a reference in the interpretation of the baroque repertoire for violin, with repeatedly awarded recordings and performances in the best concert halls around the world. Accompanied by the Italian Anna Fontana on the harpsichord and the viola da gamba of the Galician Baldomero Barciela, she will perform a set of exquisite sonatas and concertos in the "touchant" style of François Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau and Jacques Champion de Chambonnières, together with other French, but Italian-influenced, composers such as Jean-Féry Rebel and Jean-Marie Leclair.

 

On Saturday 1 October, we will attend the premiere of the international tour of the countertenor Xavier Sabata and the baroque orchestra VESPRES D'ARNADÍ under the direction of the harpsichordist Dani Espasa, in the programme "inVISIBILI". The tour of this ensemble will continue at the prestigious Wigmore Hall in London, followed by concerts in Salamanca, Madrid, Seville and Barcelona. This programme brings together a series of arias and symphonies by baroque composers such as Giacomelli, Porta, Gasparini, Bononcini and Pollarolo, who have been overshadowed by the better known Händel, Bach and Vivaldi.

 

The closing concert will be on Sunday 9 October, the Valencian holiday, and will feature the group Al FIRDAUS ENSEMBLE. This ensemble, directed by Ali Keeler, specialises in Andalusí and Sufi music, and is made up of musicians of Moroccan, English and Venezuelan origin. In this concert they will have the collaboration of the Valencian lute player Efrén López, and will perform verses set to music by Al-Russafí and other poets of the Sharq Al-Andalus, or in other words, the pre-Christian Valencia that King James I encountered on 9 October 1238.