Canary Islands, in the tail vagn of the culture offer - La Provincia

The Canary Islands are not very well stopped when evaluating and analyzing the quality and innovation parameters that define their cultural offer, compared to other territories of the Spanish State. The study carried out annually by the Contemporary Foundation places the Archipelago among the communities of the tail car, specifically in the thirteenth place between nineteen, and only ahead of Castilla-La Mancha, La Rioja, Extremadura, Region of Murcia, Melilla and Ceuta. And that although with respect to the 2018 report, the Islands have won three positions in the table (thirteenth position): an impulse still insufficient.

Since 2009, the Culture Observatory It has been preparing a series of rankings and indicators related to the activity of the different autonomous communities and cities of the country, emphasizing those institutions and most important events of the year, in addition to analyzing the creation moment that is lived in the different fields, the annual evolution of the budgets of the organizations and the deficiencies in the cultural landscape.

By the way, this observatory sends a questionnaire to a panel of experts in various disciplines that are the people in charge of evaluating the different proposals in the different communities of the country.

In the case of the Archipelago, the Canary Islands International Music Festival (FIMC) repeats another year in the lead position, followed by the CAAM (which compared to 2018 scale no less than seven places), the Adán Martín Tenerife Auditorium (which decreases a position in relation to a year earlier) or TORCH Tenerife Space of the Arts and the Womad, both climbing a place.

Thus, up to a total of seventeen proposals, which appear in the attached table, and which are distributed within the geographical scope of both provinces, maintaining an exquisite balance.

As a result of his leadership in the Archipelago, the FIMC also reserves a place of privilege as a representative of the Canary Islands among the so-called cultural insignia, sharing the stage with spaces of the category of museums such as El Prado, Guggenheim, Picasso, the Valencian Institute of Modern Arts or the Botín Center; also next to activities of the magnitude of the Festival of Classical Theater of Mérida, the appointment with the contemporary culture Periferias or the sea of ​​Music, and other brilliant stages.

While there is a break in their tasks, the director FIMC artist Jorge Perdigón thanks the Cultural Observatory once again for recognizing the festival as the flagship of the Archipelago. "Above all it helps us, excites us and tells us that we are on the right track."

He then raises the baton and puts his team to his feet, praising the enormous effort and excellent tuning "of a group that has worked tirelessly throughout the eight islands, on a total of 28 spaces, organizing trips, accommodating logistics ... "

But as the festival does not end with music, the applause of the public and the harmony of criticism, Perdigón concludes by stating that "satisfaction is brief".

And it is that with the last measures of the Fantastic one of Berlioz, last Sunday at the Tenerife Auditorium, the 36th edition of the FIMC, wrapped in chords of success, did not end. And that's because an artistic proposal of this magnitude always implies an unfinished symphony.

Now he lives immersed in the reading of another score: the evaluation of parameters such as the levels of collection, the forecasts of the sale of localities, the ratios of the gates ... they can make the first conclusions public, "he emphasizes.

Of course, recognizes that there are issues that are complicated and others that are less complex, such as the one that has just given its final note. "Fortune has played this time in our favor," he explains.

And recalling this latest edition, he reviews exceptional moments with the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, London, Paris ..., "all of them above their expectations", highlights Perdigón. And he does not forget either "the good musical form in which the two Canary orchestras are located" or the exceptional concerts that the Russian pianist Arkadi Volodos gave (who on Monday night, precisely, delighted the audience of Münich with his virtuosity) alone with his piano in the two capital theaters.

"Each of the concerts contains a simply extraordinary story," says the director, who then stops at a piece like the Requiem de Fauré that, in his opinion, "was dangerously well treated by the publics of the islands," overflowing the seats where the musicians of the Gran Canaria Philharmonic Orchestra and the Ainur Choir. And the same happened with the activities of the Festival In Parallel "in spaces not usual and less conventional" as clubs, cafes, hotels or squares.

But, above all, from his condition of interpreter, this tenor values ​​sound solitude. "And it is that silence that determines the next phase, continuity; when you are saturated it helps you to reflect," he concludes.