The digital platform of the Castell de Peralada Festival documentary collection is born

• This is a free-to-access historical and digital archive comprising over 50,000 documents, set up to conserve, modernise and popularise the documentary collection of images, posters and other documents of the Castell de Peralada Festival, organised by the Castell de Peralada Foundation.
• The collaboration of the Cellnex Foundation and technology will enable easier access to the cultural and historical wealth of this documentary archive, ensuring that future generations can enjoy it as well.

Peralada, 13 March 2023,

The digital platform that will house the documentary collection of the Castell de Peralada Festival was presented at Peralada Castle Library . With this action, the Castell de Peralada Foundation lays the first stone of what will be its future digitised archive. The platform, created to conserve, modernise and popularise the documentary collection of images, posters and other documents of the Castell de Peralada Festival, is the result of collaboration with the Cellnex Foundation.

“In recent years, historical archives have become centres allowing free access to information, opened up to the public with the application of new technologies. For this very reason, the Castell de Peralada Festival has decided to embark on this new path to digitisation and open its doors to the cultural and historical wealth of this event” stated Oriol Aguilà, director of the Castell de Peralada Festival.

Toni Brunet, Director of Public and Corporate Affairs at Cellnex and a Trustee of the Cellnex Foundation underscored that “we particularly value this collaboration with the Castell de Peralada Foundation by placing telecommunications and connectivity at the service of universal and ubiquitous access to the Festival’s documentary and artistic collection. The dissemination of this collection, and real-time access to all its contents from anywhere in the world, is yet another example of how technology opens up new opportunities to popularise the Festival internationally, attracting new followers and thereby expanding its potential audience and ensuring its future”.

The digital platform facilitates accessibility to the documentary collection available to the public over the Internet. Outstanding among the digitised images and documents that will be available for consultation are the photographs and slides of great moments in the history of performing arts in our country, seen through the lens of professional photographers who have worked or continue to work on it, the artists who have taken part and the documents that have been published over the years.

The digital transformation of the archive of the Castell de Peralada Festival will take place in various phases, since it is a living archive that is constantly being updated, until everyone can access all the images, posters and editorial documents with a single click. The project will end in 2026 to mark the 40th anniversary of the musical contest and will promote the digital transformation of this documentary collection, comprising over 50,000 searchable files, including photographs, illustrations and other documents. So far, 11,000 photographic slides have been digitised. They concern moments from the Castell de Peralada Festival and the musical galas organised by Casinos de Catalunya between 1982 and 1992. The vast majority of the digitised photographs were taken by the photographer Josep Aznar, who died in 2017. Approximately 6,000 negatives by the same photographer are also currently being digitised, and come from the archive of the MAE, Documentation Centre and Museum of Performing Arts, where the entire Josep Aznar photographic collection is located. The first phase of the project will comprise a documentary collection of 21,000 images that will be available before the year’s end.

Furthermore, the platform will offer virtual exhibitions as a way to popularise the archive itself. The holding of photographic and archival document exhibitions and exhibitions of artists linked to the festival based on a particular theme, with a user-friendly format, will allow everyone to discover the wealth of this documentary collection. The platform is currently showing an exhibition entitled “30 years of dance in Peralada” by Josep Aznar. This exhibition includes 42 photographs by the Catalan photographer that show the most representative shows, companies, choreographers and dancers that have performed on the Peralada stage over the first 30 years. The exhibition opened at the Palau Robert in Barcelona in 2014 and later travelled to the Citadel in Roses, the Comú de Andorra La Vella and the Espai Catalunya-Europa in Brussels.

All the key national and international figures from the world of music, dance and artistic creation have appeared on the Peralada stage, such as Montserrat Caballé, Plácido Domingo, Jaume Aragall, Victória de los Ángeles, among many others, as well as Rudolf Nureyev, Maya Plisetskaya, Mstislav Rostropovich, Roland Petit, Maurice Béjart, Sylvie Guillem, and many more. The archive treasures outstanding moments in the history of performing arts such as Calixto Bieto’s Carmen, which caused controversy at the time, but is still alive today more than 20 years after its première at the Festival, or unforgettable musical moments such as the return to the stage of Josep Carreras in a recital he gave around the world after overcoming leukaemia, or the world première of the opera Babel 46 by the composer Xavier Montsalvatge.

“The festival’s history and trajectory is heavily marked by its ongoing romance with opera, dance and the performing arts. Over all these years, Peralada has bet on creation and on the creators from the country; it has supported musical composition; it has offered a space for its own productions and world premières; we have even been so bold as to build our scenery locally. All of this – what this festival has been and continues to be – is perfectly reflected in our archive”, says Oriol Aguilà, who added “if the Peralada Festival had not existed, there would be a huge void in the history of opera, dance and the performing arts of this country”.

Thanks to the support of the Cellnex Foundation and the use of technology, it will be easier to access the cultural and historical wealth of the festival, recognised for its excellence, tradition, avant-garde and innovation, guaranteeing that future generations can also enjoy it, while highlighting the commitment that this festival has always had to culture.

Visit https://arxiu.festivalperalada.com

About the Cellnex Foundation

The Cellnex Foundation, backed by Cellnex Telecom, works to reduce existing digital, social and territorial divides through initiatives that improve access to connectivity. It also works to promote positive solutions for the environment.

Its business model is based on three pillars: Proprietary programmes led by the Foundation, joint programmes executed other institutions, and corporate volunteering.

For more information: https://www.thecellnexfoundation.org

About the Castell de Peralada Foundation

The Castell de Peralada Foundation was established by the Suqué-Mateu family to stimulate, foster and coordinate cultural activities. Particularly important among them are the Castell de Peralada International Music Festival and, since 2019, the Carmen Mateu Young Artist European Award, Opera and Dance. Its objectives also include national and international promotion of the Empordà – Costa Brava destination through sports, service, civic and social projects.

The entity is part of the Peralada Group, a family business corporation present in sectors such as leisure, culture, viticulture and industry.

For more information: https://www.grupperalada.com