L'Hospitalet's EMMCA keeps up and running from home

Music does not stop in L'Hospitalet

All 2.600 students of EMMCA, both from extracurricular programmes and Tandem projects in primary school, have been receiving different proposals and activities from their teachers. Each programme, age, family situation, artistic style… required a different approach and multiple solutions arose: online teaching, video messages, contact by email, multiscreen recording, etc.

This new situation didn’t change EMMCA’s principles: having an answer for everybody to practice and enjoy arts. The participation of students has been notable. Not only following the lessons and activities proposed, but also sharing with EMMCA’s team their appreciation and gratitude for the job done.

Of course, live and group performance is the core element of EMMCA’s activity, and has been seriously complicated. It would have been unfeasible to keep the same educational and artistical activities with all if value online. Instead of that, the main goal was, from the beginning, to keep the students linked with arts, with the teachers and with EMMCA. In other words, to maintain the huge community together during the curfew.

Online teachers’ meeting, April 2020

A school of the city

One of the events that was cancelled because of the pandemic was the Spring Fest of L’Hospitalet (Festes de Primavera), including its Opening Call (Toc d’inici) planned for April 23^rd.

This event takes place yearly at the main square of L’Hospitalet, in front of the City Hall, where all the parts of the traditional procession offer their dances. The Eagle, the Ox, the Mule and the Lion, the Giants and the big-headed figures, the dragons, the bandits, the Medusa, etc. Each of these characters has its own music, according to their personality, and dances to it.

The Banda Provençana is in charge of playing this music. This band is one of a kind, it combines Catalan traditional music instruments (gralles, tarotes, tabals), instruments coming from other cultures (like the gaita, a bagpipe from Galicia) and symphonic instruments (e.g. bassoons or French horns). It involves EMMCA’s students and teachers (some of them coming from Tandem projects) and local amateur musicians, from 11 to 80 years old. Its repertoire includes both recovered traditional repertoire and new creations. To sum up, this ensemble embodies the result of EMMCA’s goals: music and arts as a means to being together, building a shared citizenship.

As this year this event was cancelled, the City Hall prepared and shared a video for the neighbours to rekindle this moment from their homes. The video includes the music recorded by the Banda Provençana, who will release a CD next autumn.

Banda Provençana, Toc d’inici, 2016

#EMMCAFest2020

Traditionally, the last week of the scholar year lessons stop and EMMCA’s groups fill with dance, music and drama performances all the squares, venues and streets of the city. This year, all this exhibition and sharing of arts took place online, but still with all the energy, creativity and joy.

With the hashtag #EMMCAFest2020, more than sixty videos were shared on Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and Facebook, with thousands of views. The content gathers creations elaborated during the lockdown, broadcast of old shows, premières of new performances and streaming of live videos. Music, drama and dance teachers and students participated on this online festival.

String Orchestras’ final video

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Article by Enric Aragonès Jové, EMMCA Pedagogical Coordinator - For further information, please contact him at earagones.ext@l-h.cat