Chamber music has a new home in Malaga city

Regina Sotorrío

Malaga

Saturday, 30 March 2024, 06:52

On the ground, everything takes on a different perspective. "Here will be the rehearsal room," says José Manuel Gil de Gálvez, pointing to an area in the foundations. Beyond, points out the president of the Fundación Hispania Música, will be the classrooms. And what we are standing on will be a courtyard for open-air musical events. But only for the time being: in the future, there will be an auditorium with almost 400 seats right there.

Some 13 years have passed since they first proposed the project. It has been more than a decade of paperwork, meetings with the administration and a tedious search for funding. Now it is real, and no longer just a sketch on paper. The Fundación Hispania Música, with the chamber orchestra Concerto Málaga as its flagship, has begun construction on its headquarters in Teatinos, a haven for Spanish and Latin American chamber music. It's named after conductor Arturo Toscanini and is just five minutes from Calle Joaquín Turina.

The group has been spreading the Spanish chamber music around the world for 27 years. This week, for example, they are in New York and Connecticut. But they are much more than an orchestra. They organise concerts such as the CIVE-Cycle: the Four Seasons (CIVE-Ciclo Las Cuatro Estaciones), they have a record label with which they rescue forgotten composers such as Belsuono String Records and have created their own publishing house with Almuzara (Iberian Musical Press). The group is also working on a project with which they have already launched a pilot, and lead research in the Andalusian and Latin American music scene - all these facets come together in the new Teatinos building.

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Hispania Música will soon occupy a corner space of 2,030 square metres, a plot of land ceded by the Malaga city council in 2017. Since then, the foundation has worked to raise over 1.5 million euros for the construction of the first phase - the work will involve three stages of construction. It has achieved this through its own funds and financing from Italian bank Fiare Banca Etica and the urban development fund GED Andalucía Urbano II, promoted by the Junta de Andalucía in coordination with the European Investment Bank. It has been an "ambitious" mission, says Gil de Gálvez, a journey plagued by bureaucratic hurdles that would see many give up. "But seeing this now, I feel that it has all been worth it," he added. The plan is to officially open the space between December this year and February next year.

The opening of the doors in this first phase will allow them to move the pilot project for early childhood education they are now carrying out in a nearby secondary school to soundproofed and perfectly equipped classrooms. They use the suzuki method, which involves teaching the instrument at an early age, similar to how children pick up languages, with daily listening and practising.

At the end of the first phase of construction, the two-storey rehearsal hall will be built. It will be the jewel of this first stage of work, and will be a versatile space to be used by the orchestra but also for small-format recitals with a capacity for almost 100 people. It will also have the necessary acoustic conditions to be used as a recording studio. The first floor will house the foundation's offices.

The project, drawn up by architects Pablo Atienza Jiménez and Juan María Blázquez Martín, is designed to adapt to the needs of Hispania Música and allows the spaces to be used independently during work. In the second phase, new classrooms, office space and a residence for researchers and postgraduate students will be built. The first academic degree to be taught in Malaga with the European University of the Atlantic will be a master's degree in music management in the Latin American world, a course they hope to offer next year.

The third and final phase will be the auditorium, with a square format but with the orchestra in the centre and the audience around it. Concerto Málaga continues to tour the world with performances planned in the USA, Finland, Tunisia and South Korea.