Music, dance and acting
As a dancer, Vincenzo Capezzuto has performed with, among others, the English National Ballet. He has won numerous awards for popularising Italian dance and also music. As well as a dancer, he is a highly accomplished singer. One project was entitled ‘Gondola’, an interpretation of eighteenth century songs of Venetian gondoliers.
He is the co-founder of Soqquadro Italiano, a project that brings together music, dance and acting. It is the music element of this project that he is bringing to Majorca. Described as migrant music or music without frontiers, the repertoire covers Italian and the whole of the Mediterranean. He is accompanied by Luciano Orologi (clarinet and percussion), Giancarlo Bianchetti (guitar) and Marco Forti (double bass).
Tuesday, 7pm, CaixaForum, Plaça Weyler 3, Palma.
Ara Malikian is back
Ara Malikian is no stranger to Mallorca. A highly popular, energetic and expressive violinist, he has performed in Palma and at the Pollensa Festival. Born in Beirut to Armenian parents in 1968, his studies took him to Hannover and London. He has long been based in Madrid, where he was for a time the concertmaster for the Madrid Symphony Orchestra. He has brought out numerous albums and been involved with Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar on soundtracks. A visually striking performer, his style, while essentially classical, embraces the folk cultures of the Middle East and of European gipsies as well as Argentine tango and Spanish flamenco.
He is currently in the midst of a world tour. He says of this that it is the result of watching his son grow up, a tribute to “those beings who are as free as a bird”. The tour is full of “dinosaurs, robotic squids, time machines and flying pianos”. It is the “magic of encountering each day, whatever it brings”.
Friday, 9pm and Saturday, 8pm, Trui Theatre, Cami Son Rapinya 29, Palma.
Germania 500 premiere
Antoni Mairata from Campanet started violin studies when he was four and took up the piano when he was six. In 2016, aged 21, he completed his studies - with honours at the Madrid Royal Conservatory. Composition had been the principal focus of these studies, and the following year he created a sensation when his four-part ‘La Serra de Tramuntana’ (four parts for the four seasons) was performed by the Balearic Youth Orchestra; he had actually written most of it when he was 19.
Having spent time in Los Angeles, he is moving into cinema soundtracks, but he has still found space to compose a work to mark the 500th anniversary of the Revolt of the Brotherhoods in Mallorca. Entitled ‘Germania 500’, it features the vocals of Marian Lush and text read by Robo Gener as well as the Balearic Symphony Orchestra. On Thursday, it has its premiere.
Thursday, 8pm, Teatre Principal, C. Riera 2, Palma.
The Four Seasons
Ara Malikian’s first recording, in 1995, was ‘Le quattro stagioni’, Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’. This is also the title of the premiere and only performance by mother and son dancers Laura Girotto and Miquel Anglada Girotto.
Laura moved to Palma from Italy in 1994. This was at a time when contemporary dance, as she said in a 2016 interview, barely existed. She has been one of its leading exponents in Majorca ever since.
‘Le quattro stagioni’ is the result of choreographic research into a 1982 concert in Tel Aviv directed by Zubin Mehta. Laura and her son have developed the choreography and the music for a performance that draws in hip hop and other contemporary styles and applies them to Vivaldi’s baroque music of 1718 to 1720.
Sunday, 6pm, Teatre Principal, C. Riera 2, Palma.
Abba is back on stage
“And here we go again; we know the start, we know the end. Masters of the scene. We’ve done it all before and now we’re back to get some more. You know what I mean.”
So, which Abba song is this from? It will feature large on Friday, as Abba tribute band, Masters of the Scene, are in town for a romp through all the hits. And they won’t be in the least bit virtual, unlike the real thing, though one could of course say that they are somewhat virtual, given that they aren’t the real thing.
Still, Masters of the Scene have mastered the Abba art - and to a great standard - and they’re knowing their fate is to be with you. In Palma.
Answer: ‘Voulez-Vous’.
Friday, 9pm, Palma Auditorium (Sala Magna), Paseo Marítimo 18, Palma.
A diverse musical group
Roada are a seven-piece group from diverse musical backgrounds who, since 2015, have been performing their traditional music mainly at the island’s fiestas and fairs. There have been two albums, recorded in Bunyola, for this set of musicians, who combine guitars, lute, whistles, violin, accordion, bass, percussion and vocals.
The diversity is striking. For example, percussionist Lluis Segura has performed with the Balearic Symphony Orchestra and was a founder member of jazz-funk group LilFunk. Vocalist and accordionist Sebastià Mut has been involved with a cappella group O’Veus. Bassist Guiem Mascaró has played with Arpellots, known for their Havaneres folk songs.
Saturday, 7pm, Teatre Municipal de Petra Es Quarter, C. Sol 5, Petra.