‘Concert & Screening’ in the Velodrome

The film music concert is a classic event in the San Sebastian Festival and is a staple among the offerings of the Velodrome, undoubtedly the Festival’s most popular stage, with a capacity for an audience of 3000. The director from San Sebastian Juan José Ocón will be in charge of directing the orchestra at this multitudinous event with films and film scores.

This year's Concert & Screening features the adaptations of music composed for seven films. The composers chosen for this occasion have been: Alejandro Amenábar in Mientras dure la guerra; Eva Gancedo in La buena estrella; Carles Cases in El portero; Carmelo Bernaola in Nueve cartas a Berta; Arturo Cardelús in Buñuel en el laberinto de las tortugas; Aitor Amezaga in La sombra de nadie; and Manel Gil-Inglada in Cher ami.

For this new concert the Basque National Orchestra has invited Andra Mari Abesbatza, which will perform in Buñuel en el laberinto de las tortugas and La sombra de nadie.

As in previous years, the concert will have an additional visual element: the music is linked to the screening, on a 400m² screen, of a medley of scenes from the films and which has been specifically created for this concert by Carlos Rodríguez, from Morgancrea. In addition, several composers will attend the concert and will be on the Velodrome’s stage to present their work.

Admission is free of charge and it will be necessary to collect the corresponding invitation from 10 to 16 September at the information point of the San Sebastian Festival in the Kursaal, from 9:00 to 20:00, or at the Donostia Tourism office, from Monday to Saturday from 9:00 to 20:00 and on Sunday from 10:00 to 19:00.The last tickets can be collected at the ticket booth of the Velodrome on the day of the concert starting at 10 AM.

CONCERT & SCREENING
Saturday 17 September, 12:00
San Sebastian Velodrome

Programme
Alejandro Amenábar: Mientras dure la guerra (Director: Alejandro Amenábar)
Eva Gancedo: La buena estrella (Director: Ricardo Franco)
Carles Cases: El portero (Director: Gonzalo Suárez)
Carmelo Bernaola: Nueve cartas a Berta (Director: Basilio Martin Patino)
Arturo Cardelús: Buñuel en el laberinto de las tortugas* (Director: Salvador Simó)
Aitor Amezaga: La sombra de nadie* (Director: Pablo Malo)
Manel Gil-Inglada: Cher ami (Director: Miquel Pujol)

Juan José Ocón, director
Andra Mari Abesbatza, choir*
Basque National Orchestra

Approximate duration of the concert: 1h15

Over the years, the Basque National Orchestra has been present at the San Sebastian Festival in a variety of ways. One of its most notable participations was at the 2012 edition, when the orchestra performed at the live première of the film score for the world-famous film Lo Imposible, by Juan Antonio Bayona, a score signed by Fernando Velázquez. Starting the following year, 2013, the orchestra began to offer on a continuous basis a live film music concert, first at its headquarters in Miramon, and from 2015 in the Velodrome, the big stage it has stayed on until this year. During this decade of film music concerts, the orchestra has performed the film scores of feature-length films such as Handia, Errementari, Arrugas, Pájaros de Papel, You’re the One, Los crímenes de Oxford, Frío sol de invierno, Alatriste, Tadeo Jones 2… It should also be highlighted that the orchestra recorded the theme music for the Festival for the 1991 and 1992 editions. This year new theme music has been recorded for the Festival, with the collaboration of the tuba soloist of the Basque National Orchestra, Óscar Abella.

In addition to its consolidated collaboration with the San Sebastian Festival, the Basque National Orchestra has explored film music on many occasions. Worth mentioning are the recent recordings of the film scores of Patria and Maixabel, as well as some previous recordings such as Un monstruo viene a verme —for which Fernando Velázquez received the Goya for the Best Original Song 2017—, Ocho Apellidos Vascos, Contratiempo, Submergence, etc.

The SGAE Foundation closely collaborates with and supports the San Sebastian Festival. Over the decades, the foundation of the Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers has focused its participation on both initiatives of the festival and on the development of events and calls of its own, which the San Sebastian Festival has always generously accommodated.

Among the prominent activities of the entity during these 25 years we could highlight: collaboration with the organisation of the non-competition section Made In Spain, an international showcase for our most recent audiovisual production. In addition, at the Sala Berlanga in Madrid, which belongs to the entity, on dates close to the festival we organise a screening of films that will compete in this section. Likewise, it has promoted professional gatherings, presentations, and in particular, awards dedicated to the screenwriter’s collective such as the SGAE’s Julio Alejandro Screenwriting Award for feature-length fiction films, the Prize for the Best Basque Script by the Basque Professional Screenwriters’ Association, and recently, to address gender equality in this medium, the Dunia Ayaso Award, which this year will be given on 22 September. Lastly, we should not forget an unmissable part of the festival with the film scores thanks to the celebration of Concert & Screening, where the Anoeta Velodrome will host a concert with a selection of film scores performed by the Basque National Orchestra, accompanied by the screening of fragments of the films referenced. Learn about all the activities of the SGAE Foundation at the 70th San Sebastian Festival on the website of the SGAE Foundation.

Alejandro Amenábar – Mientras dure la guerra

Director, screenwriter, producer and music composer, a facet that is highlighted in this programme, his career started in the early 1990s when he made a number of short films, though his first success as a director came in 1996 with Tesis. Mientras dure la guerra is in fact his latest film, for which he is the screenwriter, director and score composer: 17 nominations and 5 Goya Awards in 2020, among them Best Production Supervision. All in all he is behind another five films and several television series, the latest La Fortuna, an international production based on a comic by Paco Roca and Guillermo Corral. This creative based in Madrid stands out for being the screenwriter and composer of the music scores for his feature-length films, as well as others done by commission. He won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Mar Adentro, a film featuring Javier Bardem, and received some twenty awards at the main film festivals around the world: Among them Venice or Tokyo. With The Sea Inside he received a Goya for Best Original Score, also in 2005. In total, for his work he has received 9 Goyas, the awards given by the Spanish Film Academy.

Eva Gancedo – La buena estrella

She studied music at the Higher Music Conservatory of Madrid and at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. As a film music composer she has worked with directors such as Rafael Gordon, Manuel Palacios or Ricardo Franco, for whom she became a regular composer. She also has created works for stage performances with directors such as José Monleón (theatre) or Carmen Senra (dance). Her works have been performed, among others, by the Orchestra of Radio Televisión Española or the Prague Symphony Orchestra. She received a Goya from the Spanish Film Academy for Best Original Score for the music in The Lucky Star, for which she also won the Award from the Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos (Cinema Writers Circle). She currently combines her activity as a composer with that of an educator. She teaches at the Master's Degree in Composition for Audiovisual Media and at the Music Education Degree in the Katarina Gurska Higher Education Centre, as well as at the Higher Conservatory of Madrid.

Carles Cases – El Portero

Carles Cases has dedicated 25 years to composing and creating scores for films, both European and American. A regular composer for films by directors such as Gonzalo Suárez, Ventura Pons, Jaume Balagueró, Eduardo Rossoff, Jaime Chávarri or Stuart Gordon, Carles Cases has an extensive musical legacy with 70 film scores, some 50 albums published and around three thousand concerts given. He is currently immersed in the composition and recording of his own productions, combining it with offering concerts of his works, in solo piano, duet, trio or orchestra formats. In 2021 he published Minimal, his first minimalist work. In the 1980s he was exclusively dedicated to the musical direction of singer-songwriter Lluís Llach, both the recording of albums and live performances, offering 800 concerts. The Charles Cross Academy (Paris) gave him the Best Album award for T’estimo by Lluís Llach.

Carmelo Alonso Bernaola – Nueve cartas a Berta

Considered one of the great composers of the second half of the 20th century in Spain, he studied harmony and clarinet in Burgos and at the Madrid Conservatory. Greatly influenced by the music of Bartók, Stravinski and Hindemith, he composed Cuarteto para cuerda (String Quartet), which would earn him the National Music Award (1962). He continued his studies at the Chigiana de Siena Academy, which enabled him to modernise his musical language and become a powerful innovator -not without controversy- in his first premières for full orchestra.  To his credit: more than 100 film scores, around 50 theatre productions, eight television series plus programmes and theme music. A work acknowledged in this field with the National Film Music Award (1969 and 1973), the Goya Award for Best Original Score (1989) and the Gold Medal from the Spanish Film Academy (2002). The following acknowledgements can be added to these awards and his work as a teacher and educator at universities and conservatories: Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts (1987), National Music Award (1992), membership of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando (1993), Medal for Artistic Merit from Madrid City Council (1993) and Honorary Doctorate from the Complutense University of Madrid (1997), among many others.

Arturo Cardelús – Buñuel en el laberinto de las aceitunas
Arturo Cardelús is a composer from Madrid based in Los Angeles. His work for Buñuel en el laberinto de las tortugas was hailed as the “soundtrack of the year” by The Wrap, nominated for the Goya and awarded the Biznaga for Best Music at the Málaga Festival and Best Music award at the Annecy Festival. Other works by Cardelús are the viral phenomenon In a Heartbeat, Black Beach, the immersive Frida Kahlo exhibition, the Netflix Original mini-series Call me Francis, Descendants, The People's Fighters by Frank Marshall and Altamira, el origen del Arte by José Luis López Linares. The contributions by Cardelús to the world of concert music were acknowledged when he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in 2016. He studied piano at the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, the Higher Music Conservatory of Salamanca and the Professional Conservatory of Guadalajara. In 2008 Cardelús changed direction, studying composition and film at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude and received the highest award from the composition department.

Aitor Amezaga – La sombra de nadie
Born in Bilbao and trained in a Conservatory, he completed his education at L’aula de música moderna y Jazz with Arthur Berstein and received the Recital Certificate of Keyboards from the prestigious Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. Since 1973 he has collaborated as an arranger and recording musician for over 80 albums; there are six albums on the market with his work and he has made music for television, radio and different media in Spain, Argentina, France, Germany, Israel or Switzerland, among others. In the field of soundtracks for feature-length films he has carried out four projects: Ione, sube al cielo by Joseba Salegi, Frío sol de invierno by Pablo Malo, Skizo by Jesús Ponce and La sombra de nadie by Pablo Malo. He currently combines his creative activity with education by teaching at the Music School of San Sebastian, and by collaborating with the Conservatory of Irun and Udako Euskal Unibertsitatea. In addition, as an author he has published three sheet music books for piano.

Manel Gil-Inglada – Cher ami

Manel Gil-Inglada a renowned and multiple award-winning composer of soundtracks with more than 45 international recognitions between nominations and awards during the last ten years only. With more than 30 years of experience in the audiovisual sector aside from as many as a performer, he studied at the Aula de Música Moderna y Jazz in Barcelona, specialising in Film Scoring at a number of seminars and courses with José Nieto, Armando Trovaioli and Ennio Morricone. He is the author of many television theme tunes and music scores for films (feature-length and short films), and teaches in several master's degrees related to animation film scoring. He is currently single-handedly immersed in composing for film, orchestra and video games, such as the recent Endling - Extinction is Forever, whose soundtrack includes the participation of the great Tina Guo and Rusanda Panfili, both regular collaborators of Hans Zimmer. A soundtrack that is receiving many excellent reviews.

More information