"It will probably be one of the last opportunities to hear her live in Burgos. The prestigious organist Montserrat Torrent (Barcelona, ??1926), who was heard in the Cathedral in May of last year, returns this autumn to give another recital before the Burgos public. The oldest active organist in the world will once again demonstrate that age has in no way diminished her otherwise excellent abilities, although it is also logical to think that, given her 96th birthday in April, this concert and the travel it entails may be her last in the city. But you never know.
Montserrat Torrent will perform on Saturday, October 1st, at the San Esteban Church, in the Museo del Retablo, as part of the concert series organized by Diego Crespo as part of his artistic residency. The performer will be attending with a program that also includes the Burgos organist Antonio de Cabezón, to whom she dedicates two pieces: Tiento de sexto tono and Diferencias sobre 'Guárdame las vacas'. She will also perform works by other 16th-century contemporaries such as Marcantonio Cavazzoni, Manoel Rodrigues Coelho, Sebastián Aguilera de Heredia, Francisco Correa de Arauxo (her favorite early composer), Tarquino Merula, and William Bird, and 17th-century composers such as Pau Bruna.
The performer has already finalized the concert program, as well as the lines she usually accompanies as a resume and with which she reveals her thoughts. Because "the lady of the organ" doesn't need to present credentials that have accumulated accolades such as the 2021 National Music Award for Performance, the Silver Medal of Artistic Merit in the Fine Arts, or the Honoris Causa from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
The former professor of organology advocates for an active and beneficial old age within a society that respects the experience of the elderly and neither marginalizes nor forgets them: "I belong to a generation that suffered many prohibitions and silences; I fought against the current, protesting and expressing opinions with criteria in a coherent manner. Ideologies still existed. I fight to avoid being forced into the relentless social condition of being expendable, into loneliness and sorrow, into oblivion and ingratitude."
"Those of us who are still working," he continues, "feel displaced or undervalued; we have issues fitting in with the newer generations. Our experience isn't valued, and we hate the constant, stressful retraining of new technologies," says the man who handles the latest mobile apps and uses social media.
"I'm beginning to feel sickened by the arrogant disdain shown for culture. There's a utilitarianism associated with a misguided notion of progress that should concern us," he notes, adding that "the obsessive pursuit of the useful has ended up rendering life itself useless. We won't improve the world with more technology and less humanism. Even to make money, it's essential to know the classics," he concludes.
Tickets for the concert will go on sale on September 15th and can be purchased for €10 at the Museo del Retablo box office and in the mornings at the Casa de la Iglesia."
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