On April 1, 1996, a group of five Barcelona citizens linked to the music scene signed the founding act of Gràcia Territori Sonor (GTS), a non-profit association that, among other objectives, aimed to promote "the projection of the Gràcia district as a European experimental territory through exchange with other musical fields of experimentation in Europe." A noble objective that, among other initiatives, has been materialized since that same year with the LEM Festival, which in its first edition featured the participation of musicians from Barcelona, Northern Catalonia, Switzerland, Japan, Portugal, and England.
The XXIII edition of LEM kicks off on September 27 with a concert by Sergi Sirvent Trumpets Affairs at Texas cinemas in the city. The new adventure of the Barcelona pianist (who plays the trumpet in this initiative) reveals a truly intense agenda, with twenty performances that will take place in nine venues in the city. The list of artists involved in the different projects that feed the program rises to 44 artists of various nationalities.
The musician and writer Víctor Nubla, artistic director of the festival, explains that "we always try to present proposals that the public does not know, encouraging people to discover things. We are not a festival of established musicians. This is like a harvest, and logically there are better years than others, with more emerging projects to show."
"Barcelona has an interesting and quite high-level scene in terms of unorthodox or exploratory musicians"Proposals such as Sleaze Arte (the guitar and bass orchestra of the Franco-Polish Kasper T. Toeplitz who performed in the Hypostyle Room of Park Güell in 1997); The Walter Thompson Orchestra with a lot of Barcelona artists integrated into the American composer's formation (2000); or the Italians Goblin, shelling out the soundtrack of Dario Argento's film Suspiria the year 2014, are some of the great moments experienced during these two long decades of the festival. A period, explains Nubla, in which "there have been several generational renewals of the audience, which we really like to see happen. We noticed it especially last year and the year before." The same renewal, by the way, that has been experienced within GTS, since currently our interlocutor is the only survivor of the founding team.
The agreements that LEM has established at different times with other festivals in Sardinia, Poland, Portugal or France, have allowed not only artists from other countries to perform in Barcelona, but also local musicians with whom the entity is in permanent interaction -another day we will talk about initiatives such as the Encontres en l'Espai-Temps that take place throughout the year--, to show their creations on the continent. Without falling into self-complacency, Víctor Nubla considers that "Barcelona has an interesting and quite high-level scene in terms of unorthodox or exploratory musicians". An ecosystem that, naturally, is also reflected in the LEM 2018 program. This is the case, among other local proposals, of Gemma Lloret, former keyboardist of the group Ego:Trip, who after changing synthesizers for piano will present the album Sonder next October 13 at Sala Nota 79.
One of the performances of this LEM that has raised the most expectations is that of the Czech composer, sound artist and multi-instrumentalist Lenka Morávková. The artist will show her work with the unique Bohemian crystal instrument that she herself has built, following the model that brothers Bernard and François Bachet (one an engineer, the other a sculptor) designed in 1952. With her voice and the electronic processing of the sounds of the spectacular artifact, Morávková will occupy the stage of the MACBA Auditorium on October 11. Another of the festival's great essential events is the concert by the Pole Zbigniew Chojnacki, an accordionist who has worked with great improvisers from his country such as Michal Urbaniak, Zbigniew Namysłowski and Jacek Kochan. Taking advantage of the possibilities of electronics, Chojnacki will unravel new possibilities of his instrument at the Civic Center Convent de Sant Agustí (October 5), inspired by everyday sounds such as the noise of a bus engine or an old chair. It is also an excellent idea to visit Sala Nota 79 on October 19 to deal with Simone Weißenfels (piano and laptop) and Bert Stephan (trumpet and flugelhorn). Two German musicians with a long career (she in the world of improvised and contemporary music, he with the rock-fusion of DEKAdance) who have been a tandem for a decade offering net-free sessions that they have defined as "free jazz without jazz". No joke.
Outside the international segment of the program, we find proposals from closer artists such as the Granada-born Mar Pareja, founding member of Lagartija Nick. This time, Pareja comes to Barcelona (Almo2bar, October 27) to show us the songs from his first solo album, Disonancia, which explores electronic rock. Also pay attention to Sara Fontán, whom many will remember from her time with Manos de Topo; during her visit to the Soda Acústico bar (October 6), the Galician-born artist will present her new personal project, where she explores the possibilities of the violin with the reinforcement of all kinds of processed effects. It is also not a matter of missing the traditional LEM Agape, a multisensory experience that since 2005 combines gastronomy, poetry, and music. This year, the protagonists of this unusual banquet are the collective Mancebía Postigo, the poet Maria Sevilla and the multi-instrumentalist Oriol Luna, who await you on October 14 at the venerable Casa Almirall on Joaquín Costa street.
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