Jordi Savall, Catalonia

 

Jordi Savall was born in Barcelona in 1941. Like many other musicians, he began his musical training at the age of six as a member of the boys’ choir in his hometown of Igualada. He first studied the violoncello at the Barcelona Conservatory, before researching early music and taking up the viola da gamba. Within a very short time, he became one of the most important researchers and interpreters of music written before 1800. His creative power, has taken him – for many years together with his late wife, Montserrat Figueras – to concert halls, churches and cathedrals all over the globe.

Together with Montserrat Figueras, he founded the ensembles Hespèrion XXI (1974), La Capella Reial de Catalunya (1987) and Le Concert des Nations (1989), as well as his own record label, ALIA VOX (1998).

 

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For more than 40 years, Jordi Savall and Montserrat Figueras – his wife, who died in November 2011 – have worked tirelessly to find, through their music, dialogue between cultures and peoples. In 2008, UNESCO awarded Jordi Savall the title of Artist for Peace. In the same year, the European Union named him as their Ambassador for Intercultural Dialogue. In addition to countless other awards and honours, in 2010 he received the International Music for Peace Award at the des Praetorius Music Awards in Niedersachsen, Germany. In 2012 for his life’s work, he received the prestigious Danish Music Award, equivalent to a Nobel Prize for Music. Léonie Sonning.