On 12 October, in the middle of the Remei festivities, the Teatre Auditori d’Alcanar was full to pay tribute to Enrique Escudé-Cofiner (Barcelona, 1909-1996). With the composer’s portrait presiding over the stage, the evening brought together the performers who have returned his music to the stage, and his family.
It was not just any place. It was in Alcanar, during the Remei festivities of 1939, that Cofiner met Isabel Fuentes, who would become his wife. Eighty-seven years later his daughter, Isabel Escudé-Cofiner, President of the Foundation, addressed the audience of the town to which her father dedicated the hymn to the Mare de Déu del Remei and a march titled, precisely, Alcanar.
Part one: two guitars
Maria Camahort and Anders Clemens Øien presented Somorrostro, el mar baila por la playa, the project in which Camahort brings some of Cofiner’s most representative piano works to the guitar duo, keeping their rhythmic drive, their colours and their flamenco echoes.
Maria Camahort and Anders Clemens Øien perform Somorrostro.
Part two: the songs
Carles Marigó, who led the recovery, revision and first recording of Cofiner’s piano music, turned to the composer’s other great side: song. With the voice of Dasha Medvedeva, these melodies took on a new, contemporary and personal shape. Isabel Rojo Escudé-Cofiner, the composer’s granddaughter, sang some of them from the most intimate place: remembrance and family memory.
The evening ended with performers and family on stage, flowers in hand, and the long applause of a full theatre.
Thank you
The Foundation thanks the Ajuntament d’Alcanar and the Teatre Auditori for their welcome, the performers for their dedication and the people of Alcanar for being there. More than a retrospective, it was proof that Cofiner’s music is alive and sounds again where an essential part of his story began.
Keep listening: Somorrostro, Embrujo and No se lo digas a nadie. Get our news through the newsletter or support the Foundation.
Photos: Fundación Enrique E. Cofiner.