This month will see the southern town of Tarragona host of the prestigious 2018 Mediterranean Games; in run-up to the event’s inauguration on June 22, the seaside municipality will also be filled with music. Specifically, melodies honoring the Catalan cellist, composer and conductor Pau Casals will be performed by the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and Catalonia National Orchestra (OCB).

The orchestra is to play this Sunday, June 10 at the Tarragona Cathedral, with a theme that, through Casals, will connect the Paris Olympic Games of 1924 and 2024 with the sporting event in Tarragona. The orchestra will perform three pieces under the direction of Kazushi Ono, ending with ‘El cant dels ocells,’ (translated in English as ‘The song of the birds’), a traditional Catalan Christmas song and lullaby popularized by the cellist.

“A son of this land”

Pau Casals (1876-1973) was born in Catalonia and trained in Barcelona, with a musical background that would eventually blossom into a preeminent international career. He was an ardent Republican and went into exile after their defeat in the Spanish Civil War, vowing not to return until democracy was re-established. He died in Puerto Rico, not having seen the end of the Francoist dictatorship. The event in Tarragona will also include the participation of Marta Casals, widow of the musician and co-founder of the Pau Casals Foundation, come all the way from Washington.

The connection between the Tarragona Mediterranean Games and the Paris Olympics stems from a performance given by the Pau Casals Orchestra in 1924 in honor of the athletic competition in France. According to the director of the Pau Casals Foundation, Jordi Pardo, the Tarragona occasion was seen as a good moment to commemorate that “a son of this land was an important player in the cultural dimension of the Paris Olympics,” which, incidentally, are to be repeated in the French capital in 2024.