Bob Dylan will perform in Granada in spring | Culture

The Granada International Music and Dance Festival has included Bob Dylan in the program of its 72nd edition, which will take place from June 21 to July 19 at the Palace of Charles V, in the Generalife and in other heritage spaces of the city. Their performance will be prior to the opening of the festival, on June 13, in an extraordinary concert at the Generalife. The American singer will arrive in the Andalusian city as part of a tour of Spain of which only this stop is known for now. The previous occasion was in 2019, when he gave eight concerts.

Dylan’s performance will come to the city of Granada in a collaboration between the Festival and the cycle 1001 Musica musical program that will celebrate its third edition this year and is held every September at the Generalife. The intention of Pepe Rodríguez, music promoter and person in charge of 1001 Music, was to bring Dylan for September, but the artist’s availability for Spain was June and July, so they thought that “this union between the two Alhambra festivals would be a good opportunity,” Rodríguez explained. Tickets will be available from March 15 and festival passes can be purchased from March 21. Individual tickets, starting April 11.

In this Granada festival there are frequent forays into flamenco, but not so much into other music. Flamenco nights are common, reinforced if possible last year on the occasion of the centenary of the Cante Jondo Competition held in 1922 in Granada. In 2018, Rocío Márquez and Jorge Drexler presented a program with round-trip songs. On this occasion, flamenco once again has its space, but Dylan will be the protagonist of this foray into other music. The musician from Minnesota has performed three times in Granada, although this is the first time he will do so in the Alhambra venue, at the Generalife Theatre, an open-air space with a capacity of 1,550 seats.

The 2023 Granada Festival includes 105 performances in 31 days. In recent years, the first concert is usually charity and takes place some time before the official opening, like Dylan’s this time. This year it will be on June 9, with the City of Granada Orchestra to benefit the Reina Sofia Foundation, in favor of the victims of the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria. Starting on the 21st of that month, daily music days will be launched in which up to 40 artists, chamber ensembles and national and international orchestras will debut. This edition also includes three residencies, that of the director Tomás Marco and those of two artists, Giovanni Antonini and Ton Koopman. In the case of Marco, several of his works will be performed and he will offer the course The creation of new operas since 1900. Antonini, flutist and conductor, will give a master class on flute, and Koopman, harpsichordist and also conductor, on organ. The two will offer several concerts. The Generalife will also host two major dance companies, the Hamburg Ballet and Béjart Ballet Lausanne.

This edition of the festival is titled Vocal universe And for this reason, according to Antonio Moral, its director, voice and music are the backbone of the programming, with a profusion of opera and lyrical recitals. In these areas, it will be performed for the first time in the Alhambra Turandotunder the direction of Nicola Luisotti. Carlos Álvarez and Magdalena Kožená will offer two lyrical recitals and Anna Lucia Richter will make her debut in Granada with a Lied program. In the main venue, the Palace of Charles V, six symphonic programs are presented, including the La Scala Philharmonic of Milan or the National Orchestra of Spain (ONE), with its lead David Afkham. The ONE and Afkham will premiere a work commissioned for the occasion by Tomás Marco, titled Ur-Nachtmusik (Mahleriana 4). The great Russian virtuoso Daniil Trifonov, who last year was forced to cancel his performance in Granada, will resume his presence in the city, and the Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson will also be there. Javier Perianes, Medal of Honor of the Festival, will debut with a recital at the Palace of Carlos V. Finally, the festival has a parallel section, the FEX, which takes music to other spaces in the city and the province.