“The history of music is also the history of a search: the search for a perfect balance between emotion and reason, intuition and architecture, freedom and order. Understanding the creative process behind great masterpieces means discovering how a composer’s experiences, the challenges of their time, and the historical, social, political, and cultural context are transformed into melodies, harmonies, rhythms, timbres, and forms capable of transcending centuries. That relentless pursuit of balance is one of the greatest lessons music offers humanity.”

“Every work lets us travel through time and view the world through the sensibility of the person who created it. Listening to music is entering, for a moment, the mind and spirit of another human being. Few experiences expand our capacity to understand, feel, and build a deeper view of ourselves and of the civilization we inhabit as much as this does.”

“The Cartagena Festival de Música sets out to trace that extraordinary creative journey chronologically, to discover how the great composers each found, in their own way, the perfect proportion between inspiration and knowledge — sometimes guided by intuition, other times by the rigor of musical architecture, and often by the harmonious union of both. Within that delicate balance lies one of the most universal forms of beauty.”

— JULIO REYES COPELLO
Artistic Director