It all started when a group of music enthusiasts organized a dance ensemble to liven up Amposta's 1915 main festival. More than a century later, this amateur proposal has transformed into the Lira Ampostina, a band and music school that trains hundreds of students every year, many of whom embark on a professional musical career that even crosses borders.
And it is that group of amateurs who in 1915 ventured to perform at the Amposta festivities continued to do so occasionally, until their director began teaching solfège classes. That was the seed of what would become the current music school, launched to train students for the band, as explained by the president of the Societat Musical la Lira Ampostina, Francesc Solà.
Although strengthening the band is its main objective, the level and quality of the training at its mid-level school have led many students to dedicate themselves professionally to music, and to pursue careers beyond Amposta, and even beyond Catalonia. "We have musicians all over Europe," Solà emphasizes. To boost the school, the entity has had the support of the Institut Català de Finances (ICF). It has done so with 100,000 euros framed within the agreement between the ICF and the European Investment Fund (EIF), which has granted a limited portfolio guarantee to the Catalan public bank to mobilize 64 million euros to support social enterprises and entities in the cultural and creative sector in Catalonia.
With the financing facilitated by the ICF, the entity aims to consolidate its project and continue growing and accompanying more students at the music school, which has 26 specialized teachers and is located in a center that has a large theater with 520 seats, a chamber auditorium for 120 people, and a multipurpose room, among other facilities.
The school's activity complements the Lira's original one: its music band, which has more than 120 registered musicians, "although we almost never all coincide." And it is that several are spread across Europe and also across the main Catalan musical institutions, such as the Liceu and the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya (OBC). Solà highlights the importance of female members in the band, which they were able to join starting in 1964; now, they represent more than half of its members.
From the Olympic Games to the Creu de Sant Jordi
The centenary activity of the Lira Ampostina, interrupted by the Civil War until 1942, took off especially with its director Octavi Ruiz, who assumed its direction between 1982 and 2020, and who gives his name to the entity's auditorium. During this period, the Lira participated in its first cultural exchanges with other bands from Europe, debuted in spaces such as the Grec Festival in 1989 and participated in the recording of pieces that would be performed at the opening of the Olympic Games. In fact, the Lira Ampostina led the parade of bands during the ceremony.
These achievements and its trajectory, which includes multiple concerts at the Palau de la Música, earned it the Creu de Sant Jordi from the Generalitat in 1995, making it the first music band recognized with this distinction. Since then, the entity has launched initiatives such as Amposta de Banda a Banda, to bring first-division bands from the music scene to the city, performed at the Fòrum de les Cultures, and has collaborated with musicians such as Joan Manuel Serrat.
Now, the Lira continues its work with an eye on the momentum of its school and on upcoming events and projects of the band. And it does so with the good prospects that always come with summer, when the professionals it has spread throughout the rest of Catalonia and Europe usually return to Amposta. Then, the musicians rejoin the band, which stars in concerts with the Lira shining in full and in its maximum splendor.