The Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED) dressed up to inaugurate its new cycle of classical music “Concerts with Soul”. Some recitals that they intend to offer to non-profit organizations that pursue a social purpose, a platform in which they can present their projects and initiatives to the audience. The sessions were opened on December 18 with the prestigious Catalan pianist Cristina Casale, who performed a complete program at the Little Palace of the Catalan Music Palace.

The concert performer has developed an important international career that has taken her to some of the best stages in the world. She has recorded several albums and is considered a great specialist in romantic music and Spanish music, especially the works of father Soler, Frederic Mompou, Enrique Granados, Isaac Albéniz and Manuel de Falla, in which she shows great personality and temperament with the sounds and nuances that it extracts from that instrument. She is also a great communicator and her concerts are also characterised by excellent pedagogical lessons about the works that are going to be performed, as happened in the concert that has opened this cycle.

With this recital she presented a tour that will take her to the United States and China, where she will perform the work she premiered for the RAED, “Doce estudios flamencos para piano” (Twelve flamenco studies for piano), by the young Catalan composer Abraham Espinosa. It is an exercise in piano virtuosity. Casale also played two sonatas by father Soler; the emblematic work of Mompou, “Impressions intimas” “Goyescas”, “La Maja” and “Ruiseñor”, by Granados, and “La danza ritual del fuego”, by Falla, one of the most important pieces in the Spanish piano repertoire.

Before the concert, the academician José Ramón Calvo presented the cycle and the president of the Vozes Foundation, the musician chosen to perform at this concert, explained how an organisation created and formed by musicians promotes an important social work to help disadvantaged children in the world professional music. The concert was sponsored by Jorquera Pianos.