Escolanía del Escorial al XXIII Festival di Musica ed Arte Sacra

It is one of Spain’s most famous children’s choirs, the Escolanía del Escorial choir residing at the majestic Escorial Monastery, a Unesco heritage site, that will be the guest of the International Festival of Sacred Music and Art for the first time on Monday 18 November (9 p.m., free admission with reservation on the Fondazione Pro Musica e Arte Sacra website) in a concert at the Basilica di Sant’Agostino in Campo Marzio.

Directed today by José María Abad Bolufer, theEscolanía del Escorial is the prestigious musical institution founded in 1974 by the Augustinian monks of the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Forty children, known as ‘escolanos’, whose ages range from nine to seventeen, trained in music to maintain and enrich the musical and spiritual heritage of the Monastery. Not only does the Choir participate in the most important liturgical ceremonies of the Christian calendar, but it also holds concerts in Spain and abroad, proudly representing the rich and ancient Spanish musical tradition.

For its debut at the Festival, the Escolanía del Escorial performs sacred and liturgical repertoire from the European area, ranging from late 15th-century Spanish music by Juan del Encina, to Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’sExultate Deo, passing through the music of Tomás Luis de Victoria and 19th- and 20th-century composers such as Anton Bruckner and Gabriel Fauré, up to the more recent Da pacem Domine by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, a prayer for peace written after the Madrid bombings of 11 March 2004 as his personal tribute to the victims and which is performed every year in Spain to commemorate them.