La Trobada ab les Accordionistes del Pirineu, one of the most traditional and veteran musical events in the musical calendar of Ponente – and in all of Europe -, is about to turn half a century since its inception in 1976, and everything is ready for the forty-ninth edition this coming weekend, for five intense days from 26 to 30 July, with the participation of around sixty artists from eleven countries and several concerts in La Seu d’Urgell, Arsèguel, the Collegiate of Castellbò and Puigcerdà. This was highlighted yesterday by the soul and promoter of the Pleated Accordion Festival, musician, researcher and promoter of Pyrenean folklore Artur Blasco, who presented this new edition in Lleida, at an event at the Provincial Council accompanied by the vice-president of the Accordion Company and the Institute of Ilerdencs Studies, Estefania Rovach, and the mayor of Organia and deputy of the province of Alt Urgell, Celeste Vila.
As every year, the musical event will bring together accordionists of all ages from the Catalan Pyrenees and also from Valencia (around forty), as well as musicians from Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Quebec, Scotland, Ireland, Switzerland, Portugal, Bulgaria, Italy and Russia. Blasco points to the collaboration agreements that have been in place for years with the Carrefour Mondial festivals in Quebec and Ivan Malinin in Novosibirsk, Siberia. “Despite the war in Ukraine, these accordionists will be able to travel to Alt Urgell, but yes, with a long journey with several stops in Belarus and Turkey,” Blasco commented on Logistics A festival with a budget of 100,000 euros, sponsored by the Generalitat, the Provincial Council, the Alt Urgell Council, the city councils of La Seu and Puigcerdà, and the Institute for the Development and Promotion of ‘Alt Pirineu’. For his part, Celeste Vila stressed that “this musical encounter reminds us every year of the accordion tradition in the alternative Pyrenees since the end of the 19th century”, while Estefania Rovach stressed that “the encounter is a high-level festival, one of the largest celebrated in the territory of Lleida” and thanked the organizational work carried out by Artur Blasco, “the soul since the first day” of this encounter which next year will reach its 50th edition.
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