Spanish music is the common thread of this year’s programme: from Gregorian chants to baroque dance, and with a journey from the New World that will take us to medieval Burgos. The Ensemble Música Liberata, from Cuba, will open the festival on 13 September with “La América Viva”, a programme of Christmas carols, cantatas and Latin American dances from the 17th and 18th centuries.

The ensemble, made up mainly of Cuban performers of early music who live in Europe, does important work in researching and spreading the Latin American baroque repertoire and since giving its first concert in 2005 it has established a benchmark for musical of cultural fusion. On Monday the 15th, countertenor Carlos Mena and vihuela player Juan Carlos Rivera, two of Spain’s internationally renowned musicians, will perform “Silva de Sirenas”, a concert in which vocal music blends with the polyphonic richness of the vihuela to serve up 16th-century Spanish music, with pieces by Valderrábano, Morales, Mudarra and Fuenllana, among others.

The City of Cáceres Chamber Orchestra, directed by Rubén Fernández, will play a heterogeneous programme of 18th-century orchestral works on 16 Tuesday, with pieces by J. S. Bach, Gluck and Handel as well as three overtures by Francisco Javier García Fajer, Joâo De Sousa Carvalho and Manuel Campillos.  On Wednesday 17, Pilar Montoya and Los Comediantes del Arte will offer up their show of music and dance called “De Mudanzas y Meneos”, with pieces from the Siglo de Oro by such composers as Diego Ortiz, Praetorius and Fabritio Caroso.

This is one of the festival’s most appealing events.  Students and teachers from the music course “Domingo Marcos Durán”, which is part of the festival, will perform on the 18th and 19th with two distinct programmes entitled “Una capilla musical del siglo de Oro”. Ismael Fernández de la Cuesta and her Coro de Canto Gregoriano will conclude the festival with “Missa De Beata Maria Virgine”.

The programme stems from a long process of research and tries to reconstruct a Mass as it was sung in the 12th and 13th centuries in Santa María de las Huelgas in Burgos, one of the great churches of Latin Christianity during the Middle Ages.

For more information visit: www.festivaldemusicaantiguadecaceres.com