As one of the candidate cities in the running to become European Capital of Culture 2016, the city council of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is managing the 13th edition of a prestigious cultural festival. A content shift now incorporates music into the programme and the festival design itself. This has become an important part in the quality of the performances and also in the collaboration of two prestigious Canarian musical institutions: the Symphonic Orchestra of Las Palmas and Choirs of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Gran Canaria (OFGC) and the Camerata Clásica of the Canary Islands.
New creations uniting staging with visual arts will be added to theatre, modern dance, outdoor shows, street theatre, children’s shows, ballet and Spanish dance. This rejuvenated programme will then offer citizens the possibility of seeing the most outstanding works of the current international scene. For approximately a month and half from the 8th of July until the 14th of August, the event will host fourteen companies from the USA, Italy and Spain whose performances can be viewed at affordable prices. The event will open at the Santa Catalina Park with a premiere from one of the most impressive outdoor theatre companies: the Italian Studio Festi. The Water Dance performance is a large multidisciplinary production mingling performing arts with new technologies. Following this act will be the national premiere of “La fiesta de los jueces” directed by Ernesto Caballero as well as the World Youth Choir 2010 which is reputed to be one of today’s most original choirs formed of young people of over thirty nationalities.

At the end of June, Dagoli Dagom will present the Noche de San Juan, a “galactic magazine” that the aforementioned Catalonian company is reviving after 28 years. Afterwards, the Symphonic orchestra of Las Palmas and the Choirs of the OFGC will present three magnificent voices in the first concert ever produced for the festival itself under the direction of Luis García Santana. The staging directed by Tony Suárez will include the projection of images set especially for the piece “Carmina Burana” in order to enhance the sensations its composer Carl Orff intended to produce. The dancing will begin with a full line-up from the Italian company TPO and its fascinating and innovative show of digital graphics, visual theatre and modern dance entitled “Barroco”. The show will then continue with a showcase from the Corella Ballet Castilla y León Company who will offer the spectator the opportunity to visualise the evolution of dance. This will then be followed by the Antonio Gades Company who has revived the extraordinary stage shows of Carmen, Bodas de Sangre and Suite flamenca.

The first ever family show will be provided by the BuenaMandarina theatre company with a piece entitled “Rebelión en el baño” which will take place in the Miller building. This will be an original staging that deals with the importance of water in our society.  The street theatre performance will be taken on by the Canarian company, Teatrokdos, who will present the show “Garoé, el árbol del agua” (Garoé, the water tree) which will take place in the Plaza de Canarias (above the Santa Catalina Bus Station). This piece is inspired by the legend of the Garoé tree, otherwise known as the water tree in the El Hierro island. The programme of this fourteenth festival will end with the family-orientated Gran Fele Circus with a show entitled “Tarzán, aquí no sale”. The principals of the New York City Ballet will also show their own personal homage to Ray Charles. Finally, the last notes of the festival will be sounded by the Camerata Clásica of the Canary Islands with Javier Negrin on the piano in a classical programme featuring pieces by Mozart and Beethoven.