History of the Festival
The Vilalte Festival (formerly 'Vilalte Music Festival') was founded in 2014 by Nathan Giorgetti and has taken place every year since then (with the exception of 2020 because of the global pandemic crisis). Its aim is to provide young musicians and ensembles with the opportunity of working intensely on a varied range of repertoire, whilst offering a range of engaging concerts to the local community of Haut Vallespir through innovative programming and interactive concerts.
The Festival has attracted musicians from a wide range of countries, including the UK, Germany, France, Holland, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia, the USA, New Zealand, Japan and Taiwan. Most performers are either students or recent graduates from major international conservatories including The Royal Academy of Music, The Royal College of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, University of the Arts Bremen, Real Conservatorio Superior de Music de Madrid, New York Mannes School of Music, and others.
The Festival has striven to make classical music more accessible and therefore does not charge for concert entries, relying rather on audience donations. In the same spirit, concerts are often held in local churches and since 2018 a model of "promenade" concerts was introduced, in which audiences move from one performance to the next in an open-air setting. Mas Vilalte itself was the stage for the 2018 edition, while in 2019 a local crafts and arts collective in a neighbouring town known as the "Moulin des Arts" was used.
We have hosted a wide range of ensembles with varied repertoire, varying from baroque cello duos on period instruments and strings quartets to folk music and singing. For more information about past concerts programs and to hear excerpts from them, please visit the Festival Archive or Media pages.
For more information about Mas Vilalte itself please refer to the website here.