The San Sebastián Festival, the Euskadiko Orkestra and the SGAE Foundation will offer the ‘Concert & Screening’ at the Velodrome on Saturday 20 September
The Euskadiko Orkestra, the SGAE Foundation and the San Sebastián Festival present the concert of film music performed by the National Orchestra as part of the event. On the first Saturday of the Festival, the Velodrome opens to music lovers, movie buffs and the general public for a show combining the symphony performance of soundtracks with a collage of scenes from the movies to which they belong.
The event will offer a treat for the eyes and ears lasting for 75 minutes on Saturday, 20 September, at 6 p.m. Entry is free.
The film music concert is now a classic at the San Sebastian Festival, and is solidly established among proposals at the Velodrome, without a doubt the Festival's most popular venue, with seating for 3,000 spectators. The conductor from San Sebastian, Juan José Ocón, will take the Orchestra through its steps in this massive coming together of cinema and soundtracks. The guests at this latest concert by the Euskadiko Orkestra, the Easo Abesbatza choir, will perform in Dragonkeeper, Money Heist, Parecido a un asesinato and El capitán Trueno y el Santo Grial.
This year's Concert & Screening comes with a total of seven pieces composed and adapted for different types of audiovisual works. The performance will include a nod to the history of Spanish cinema with excerpts from the original soundtracks of the films La fierecilla domada, El ruiseñor de las cumbres, El secreto de Mónica, Cabriola and Las chicas de la Cruz Roja, composed by Augusto Algueró and arranged by Claudio Ianni; Los futbolísimos 2, a film by Miguel Ángel Lamata (2018) with music by Alba S. Torremocha; La boda de Rosa / Rosa’s Wedding, directed by Icíar Bollain (2020) and with a soundtrack by Vanessa Garde; Dragonkeeper, by Salvador Simó and Li Jianping (2023), with music by Arturo Cardelús; the series La casa de papel / Money Heist by Jesús Colmenar, with music by Iván M. Lacámara; and the compositions of Luis Ivars for the feature films Parecido a un asesinato (featuring the song Caminar en el tiempo) co-created with Blanca Paloma and JP Polo and El capitán Trueno y el Santo Grial, both directed by Antonio Hernández Núñez (2025 and 2011). Parecido a un asesinato will have its premiere at the RTVE Gala on Tuesday 23rd at 16:30 in the Príncipe cinemas, attended by the director and its protagonists, Blanca Suárez and Eduardo Noriega.
As it has done in previous years, the concert will have an added visual element: the music will tie in with the showing on a 400m2 screen of a collage of scenes from the films, specifically created for this concert by the Morgancrea team. In addition, some of the composers will attend the concert and take to the Velodrome stage to introduce their work.
Entry is free, although the corresponding invitation must be collected from 13-19 September from the San Sebastian Festival information point at the Kursaal from 9:00-20:00, and from the Donostia Turismoa tourist office, Monday-Saturday from 09:00-20:00 and on Sunday from 10:00-14:00. The last remaining invitations can be collected from the Velodrome ticket box on the same day of the concert from 10:00.
The Euskadiko Orkestra with the Festival
Over the years, the Euskadiko Orkestra has been present at the San Sebastian Festival in different ways. One of its most remarkable participations was at the 2012 edition, when it gave a live performance of the soundtrack accompanying the premiere of Juan Antonio Bayona's world-famous movie The Impossible, a score carrying the signature of Fernando Velázquez. From the following year, 2013, the Orchestra started to give a regular live concert of film music, first of all at its Miramon headquarters and, from 2015, at the Velodrome, on the enormous stage still in place this year. In this decade of film music concerts, the Euskadiko Orkestra has performed the soundtracks of feature films including Handia / Giant, Errementari / The Blacksmith and the Devil, Arrugas / Wrinkles, Pájaros de Papel / Paper Birds, Los crímenes de Oxford / The Oxford Murders, Tadeo Jones 2 / Tad the Lost Explorer and the Secret of King Midas, Mientras dure la Guerra / While at War, and Buñuel en el laberinto de tortugas / Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles… In total, the Euskadiko Orkestra has performed and drawn attention to more than 70 soundtracks of movies from our film world. Note too that the Orchestra recorded the theme tune for the Festival’s 1991 and 1992 editions.
As well as its consolidated collaboration with the San Sebastián Festival, the Euskadiko Orkestra has frequently revisited the world of film music. Worthy of mention are the recordings of the soundtracks of Patria and Maixabel, added to earlier recordings such as Un monstruo viene a verme / A Monster Calls —with which Fernando Velázquez won the Goya for Best Original Song in 2016— Ocho Apellidos Vascos / A Spanish Affair, Contratiempo / The Invisible Guest, Submergence, etc.
The SGAE Foundation with the cinema
Since 2012, the SGAE Foundation has been jointly organising the non-competitive Made in Spain section, featuring a selection of Spanish movies produced in the last year, whether or not they have been released, to which the Festival provides an excellent springboard for their international dissemination. These works will screen from 23-27 September at the Sala Berlanga in Madrid.
The Foundation created by the Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE) also gives the Dunia Ayaso Award to the Best Screenplay focused on the gender perspective which will, in 2025, celebrate its ninth consecutive edition paying tribute to the director from the Canary Islands who died in 2012.
For its part, the SGAE Territorial Council in the Basque Country backs the Award going to the Best Basque Screenplay, given yearly by the Professional Association of Basque Screenwriters at the Festival itself.
Concerts & Tickets September
