The wait has been long but its end is near. Barcelona is about to premiere a new summer festival season, finally leaving behind the cancellations and restrictions that have prevailed in recent pandemic years. In recent weeks, already without masks, massive concerts such as those of C.Tangana at the Palau Sant Jordi and Estopa at the Parc del Fòrum have served as an appetizer, with the public merging and forgetting about safety distances. Festivals like Sónar will also return to the old normal and will do so in a big way after a long hiatus, in their case, more than 1,000 days later, according to one of its co-directors, Ricardo Robles.
This forced pause, only interrupted by minor editions held in Istanbul and Lisbon, has served the Sónar organizers to review formats and content and introduce changes in its return on June 16, 17 and 18, just after Primavera and before Cruïlla. This change of course is especially evident in Sónar+D, the international congress that complements the musical program and that will be completely remodeled.
Sónar+D will occupy the entire Palau de Congressos, with a format that seeks to dilute the borders that separate a festival from congresses. One of the novelties will be the Stage+D stage, where talks with a high audiovisual component and hybrid presentations between conference and performance will be held, with seven screens that will create an enveloping and immersive experience, highlights its curator Antònia Folguera.
With more than 60 activities and 50 speakers, the main thematic axes of Sónar+D will revolve around artificial intelligence, acoustic ecology and Web3. Among the speakers will be the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), which will present its scientific approach to the NFT market, and the Barcelona company Voctro Labs, which will talk about the singing synthesizers it has been developing for years. The ISEA, an international symposium on electronic art that will be held this year in Barcelona, will collaborate with Sónar with conferences and workshops for professionals in the creative industries.
Another of the highlighted chapters of Sónar 2022 will be the route it will propose beyond its main venues, the Montjuïc and Gran Via fairgrounds. The Palau Güell will host the co-creation project Hyperorgan, with an organ capable of being activated by computer tools. It will be the first time in Spain that this instrument can be heard, and all those who visit Gaudí's hidden work in the center of Barcelona between June 15 and 19 will be able to do so. The Hotel ME Barcelona will also be intervened, with the immersive audiovisual installation Transient by Italian artist Quayola, omnipresent in the festival's program this 2022. The last stop will be the Fundació Antoni Tàpies with the installation Sondear created in 2001 by Finnish musician Mika Vainio to record the urban environment in real time through the vibrations of the sculpture that crowns this building, Núvol i cadira.
More than 200 artists
The festival's program, together with Sónar+D, will bring together more than 200 artists, 117 shows and 176 activities distributed between Sónar by Day, held at the Montjuïc venue, and Sónar by Night, at Fira Gran Via and until 7:30 in the morning. Behind the figures, for co-director Enric Palau, this "expanded Sónar" will allow mixing expected returns, absolute premieres and exclusive concerts, with cultural diversity and environmental challenges as transversal elements.
The festival's program, together with Sónar+D, will bring together more than 200 artists, 117 shows and 176 activities distributed between Sónar by Day and Sónar by NightGlobal icons such asThe Chemical Brothers---the British duo will premiere their new audiovisual show---,Moderat, The BlazeandBonobo, will coexist with established talents of popular culture who took some of their first steps on the Sónar stages such asNathy PelusoandC. Tangana.Niño de ElcheandMaria Arnal i Marcel Bagéswill present shows specially created for this edition of the festival, as willSamantha Hudsonin his debut at Sónar. There will also be space for the rapper from La FloridaMoradand the referent of theclubbing The Blessed Madonna
One month before its celebration, organizers are registering a good pace of sales, with a maximum expected capacity of 17,000 attendees for each of the three daytime sessions in Barcelona and 32,000 for the two nighttime sessions in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. "It will be one of the festival's good years," Robles defends. With a budget of 9.4 million euros, similar to that of 2019, almost 78% will come from its own resources. Unlike other local festivals, Sónar guarantees its "absolute roots" in Barcelona, with 29 editions behind it and already looking forward to celebrating its 30th. "We are happy to export and always return here," Robles emphasizes.