Musika Gela presents its most inclusive and extensive Season to date
Euskadiko Orkestra’s educational and social cycle kicks off this Season 24/25 with more activities than ever: more than 70. And, above all, more inclusive than ever with the incorporation in many of these activities of its most transversal and necessary approach: to make the orchestra an active vehicle for social inclusion in its different formats and the backbone of the country through song.
The cycle premieres four of its own productions: ‘Ilargiari kantari’, ‘Musika tantak, “Logelan logale” and “Misterioa”, a show that starts this week with 3,300 schoolchildren. This first production will also have its Family Concert this Saturday, October 19th, at 12:00, at the Euskadiko Orkestra headquarters on the Donostia Campus of the Euskadi Technology Park, with tickets already on sale.
The educational cycle Musika Gela has a long tradition in Euskadiko Orkestra’s programme and was created with the aim of bringing music closer to the general public, to the younger sector. This year, more than ever, the cycle is directed with special attention to the most sensitive sector of society.
With the aim of promoting inclusion and accessibility to culture for disadvantaged groups, numerous actions have been incorporated into the new Musika Gela cycle. On the one hand, several of the productions presented this year have been conceived with the idea of incorporating this aspect in a comprehensive and transversal manner. On the other hand, this season will see the expansion of the inclusive musical workshops that Euskadiko Orkestra has shared with FEVAS for more than a decade and which have now become a more central, consolidated and extended initiative, christened Musikazaleak. And lastly, Musika Gela is now part of the European ARTIS+ project and the Gertu Kultura network of programmers, both initiatives that aim to improve accessibility to culture for vulnerable people.
Inclusion, the backbone of this season’s productions
Two of the four in-house productions to be presented within the framework of Musika Gela are particularly focused on accessibility to culture and the visibility of vulnerable groups: Musika tantak and Misterioa.
On the one hand, Musika tantak will be the project of inclusion and variety. In it, musicians with different abilities will become the protagonists of the concert and will share the stage with performers from the orchestra. The show will feature a surprise repertoire that will be an exciting and innovative experience for new artists and our musicians.
On the other hand, Misterioa proposes a new format for its Family Concert: a relaxed session, which opens the doors to an inclusive coexistence in which all families share the stalls, those who have members with a disability and those who do not. This is a way of promoting that, outside the activities organised during the week by their associations, people with disabilities can attend individually with whomever they wish, without fear that their behaviour will be judged by the rest of the audience.
In order to better adapt to their needs, the relaxed sessions have a series of conditions that make them more tolerant and less formal than the routines of a regular concert. The doors of the concert hall will remain open throughout the session to allow our audience to come and go throughout the event. The hall will be lit at all times, avoiding darkness, and special care will be taken to avoid bright lights, loud noises and sensory surprises. All members of the audience shall maintain a relaxed attitude to noise and movement during the performance.
If it is necessary to leave the room, the entrance hall will be an alternative space for our audience to take a break and rejoin the event when ready. And performers and staff will be sensitised to best practice in access and inclusion.
Musikazaleak
Euskadiko Orkestra has been working for inclusion in Musika Gela for a long time, hand in hand with FEVAS Plena Inclusión Euskadi. Both entities began working on a joint initiative 15 years ago with the aim of promoting inclusion and the right to culture for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Since then, around 1,500 people have participated in numerous activities, including workshops in Bilbao, Vitoria and San Sebastian, as well as concerts at the orchestra’s headquarters in Miramon. These activities have merited the ‘Good Practice’ prize awarded by the Spanish Confederation of Organisations in favour of People with Intellectual Disabilities (FEAPS) and have been the seed of examples such as Mosaic of sounds, an initiative that was extended to 14 Spanish orchestras as a pioneering practice in which music becomes an instrument for personal development and social inclusion. This initiative received the CERMI 2018 national award for promoting disability inclusion through music.
This season, this shared project takes a new and important step forward with the presentation of the Musikazaleak initiative, which will involve students from Musikene’s Master’s degree in Music Mediation, Management and Dissemination. Yamel Romero, composer, music therapist and sophrologist specialising in the accompaniment and development of teams and individuals through music, will also be collaborating. Musikazaleak consists of forming three stable groups (one in Bilbao, one in San Sebastian and one in Vitoria) of around fifteen people with intellectual or developmental disabilities who will participate in eight musical workshops during the course. The workshops will culminate in a concert in June 2025 to showcase the work done during the course. These workshops have the collaboration of the Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga Conservatory of Bilbao and the Municipal Network of Theatres of Vitoria-Gasteiz.
Musika Gela’s incorporation into important projects and networks that promote inclusion
The complete Musika Gela cycle is part of ARTIS+, art for social inclusion, a European cross-border cooperation project that seeks to improve the accessibility of cultural facilities for population groups at risk of exclusion, whether for reasons of disability or for social reasons. This project will be shared until 2027 with partners such as the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, L’Auditori and Orchestre OBC de Barcelona and the Orchestre de Pau, among others.
Along the same lines, Musika Gela’s programme is now part of Gertu Kultura, a network of cultural programmers who join forces to facilitate access to culture for people in vulnerable situations. This non-profit initiative seeks to improve people’s quality of life through culture. To this end, through collaboration with cultural programmers and social entities, it generates unique cultural spaces and experiences with very low prices, priority access and personalised treatment based on listening to and responding to the needs of different groups. Gertu Kultura comes from the Apropa Cultura network, initiated by the Auditori de Barcelona and which, after two decades of experience in Catalonia, is today an inclusive network of reference, with more than 190 cultural programmers, more than 1800 social entities and more than 54 municipalities.
PROGRAMME OF THE CYCLE
Four in-house productions
Year after year, Euskadiko Orkestra is committed to producing its own productions with original scripts and shows created expressly to be premiered within the framework of its educational cycle. This season, a total of four of the orchestra’s own productions have been programmed.
The first of these, Misterioa, premiered last spring in the Kursaal and is being presented these days in Miramon. On the one hand, as Concerts for Schools, from the 16th to the 24th of October, with the visit of more than 3,300 schoolchildren; and, on the other hand, as a Family Concert, on Saturday the 19th of October, at 12:00, in a relaxed session format. The rest of the in-house productions premiering this season will be Ilargiari kantari, Musika tantak and Logelan logale.
These productions are presented in the format of Concerts for Schools and Family Concerts, which represent the centrepiece of the cycle.
On the one hand, it is expected that throughout the entire season around 8,000 infant, primary and secondary school students will attend the School Concerts of these productions. These are students from around 100 schools in towns such as Altzo, Aizarnazabal, Andoain, Hernani, Hondarribia, Irun, Oiartzun, Orio, San Sebastián, Segura, Tolosa and Usurbil, among others. For the first time, and with Logelan logale, there will be a Concert for Schools in Vitoria. The Concerts for Schoolchildren currently have the collaboration of the General Council of Gipuzkoa, the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, the Education Section of the City Council of San Sebastian, Kursaal Eszena and the City Council of Vitoria-Gasteiz.
On the other hand, the productions will take place in San Sebastian and Vitoria in the format of Family Concerts, the section with the longest and most established trajectory within Musika Gela. This cultural leisure alternative for families to enjoy with the youngest members of the family has been part of the orchestra’s programme for 28 years. The Family Concerts in San Sebastian are sponsored by El Diario Vasco, and the one to be held in Kursaal, Musika tantak, has been organised in collaboration with Kursaal Eszena. The concerts in the capital of Alava, meanwhile, have the collaboration of the Red Municipal de Teatros de Vitoria-Gasteiz (Vitoria-Gasteiz Municipal Theatre Network). Tickets for these shows, priced between 3 and 8 euros, can be purchased through the website euskadikoorkestra.eus, as the dates of each show draw nearer. Tickets can also be purchased at the box offices of the corresponding venues and on the Kursaal website (kursaal.eus).
