The central element of Jordi Savall’s musical work is the search for common ground: the shared musical language of different cultures, peoples and religions. The connection between music and history. In this quest, he not only brings forgotten songs back to life, but also nourishes the ancient human longing to meet in peace and live in peace.
This shared endeavour by Jordi Savall and the Scuola Vivante led to a joint performance in April 2014, the concert ‘Mare Nostrum – Dialogue of Ottoman, Jewish and Christian Music from around the Mediterranean’.
Jordi Savall was joined on stage at the Herz Jesu Church in Buchs SG by 18 outstanding instrumentalists and vocalists from Armenia, Turkey, Greece, Israel, Italy, France, Catalonia, Spain and England – a musical journey around the Mediterranean with stories of migration and dialogue between the three great monotheistic religions.
Jordi Savall integrated the choir of the Scuola Vivante into the final part of the concert in a Turkish, Arabic, Greek and Hebrew variation of the folk song Ghazali – a song that has spread throughout the Middle East and has been sung or danced in various countries, each in a slightly modified form, in their own national language, but still unmistakably the same piece.
By including the children’s and youth choir of the Scuola Vivante, Jordi Savall drew a line from early music – with its central concern of preserving history – to the current politically, socially and religiously tense situations between North and South and East and West: towards the future generation that will carry us forward. This generation is given a voice in the concert and is called upon to participate in these dialogues, to continue them and to work for a loving world.
