Festival – Festival de Pollença

Presentation

The successive editions of the Festival de Pollença are inspired by its essence and deepest characteristics, always respectin its unique identity while embracing an International dimension designed to be accessible to all.

The Festival de Pollença goes far beyond the boundaries of the municipality, attaining an International scope that surpasses the límits of the Balearic Islands and Spain, offering yet another reason –this time cultural- for people of all nationalities to take an interest in visitin the Islands and Mallorca in particular

Over eight hundred top-level artists have become part of the history of the Festival de Pollença, representin nationalities and styles as diverse as the Great Symphony Orchestra of Soviet Radio, the Orchestre National de France, the Pittsburgh Symphony, Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Lorin Maazel, Mischa Maisky, Llaura Malikian, Maria João Pires, Monserrat Caballé, Ainhoa Arteta, José Mercé, Ravi Shankar, Goran Bregović, Roger Hodson, Michael Nyman, Nelson Freire, the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir, the London Philharmonic Orchestra; Il Giardino Armonico, David Fray, Valentina Nafornita, Yuja Wang, among other names of exceptional relevance.

Throughout its history, the Festival de Pollença has consolidated its international prestige, reaffirming it status as an unmissable event during the summer months –both for residents and for those visiting the island of Mallorca who wish to enjoy a musical programme of outstanding quality in each of its performances.

The Festival de Pollença serves as a window through which the light of the world’s great artists enters, and as a “cultural beacon” that emits, through the musical compositions performed by prestigious ensembles and soloists, a light that shines across Europe. A light that, following the path of music, invites us to look through the window of the Festival de Pollença and enjoy the beauty of the municipality and the island of Mallorca from a diferent perspective. Ultimately, our aim is for the Pollença Festival to become, as a Wise person once said, “a radiating flame of culture capable of reaffirming our identity”.

The Festival team

The Festival, attached to the Department of Culture of the City Council, is managed by the technical services of the City Council of Pollença. From 2020, the Festival has Mr. Pere Bonet Bonet in the tasks of programming and artistic direction and design and as Coordinator of the Festival’s Advisory Committee, from 2024.

Since 2024, the Advisory Commission was recovered with the aim of sharing, debating and evaluating the annual programs and editions. The committee is made up of four experts with musical training and knowledge and backgrounds that support his appointment, including Mònica Marí, Mrs Isabel Fèlix, Mr Joan Company and Mr Joan Campomar.

The Cloister

Between the 16th and 17th centuries the Dominicans erected this emblematic building, in the cloister of which one of the main classical music meetings in the world is held every year.

This building was erected by the Dominican friars (1) between 1558 and 1616 with the aim of consolidating their presence in Pollença, since they initially settled in the Oratori del Roser Vell. The Dominicans occupied the church and the convent until 1833, when the complex was disentailed (2), and a few years later the State ceded it to the Ajuntament de Pollença. Since then it has been put to numerous uses, from hospice-residence to Civil Guard barracks, school, library and museum.

The church of the convent has a basilica floor plan (3) and ten side chapels, each adorned with an altarpiece from the period of its construction. The most striking example is the one at the head of the church, which was made between 1651 and 1662 by Majorcan sculptor Joan Antoni Oms and is dedicated to the Mare de Déu del Roser, patron saint of the Dominicans. The painting dates back to the fifteenth century and comes from the Oratori del Roser Vell.

Next to the church is the pièce de résistance of this building: a Baroque-style (4) cloister which was completed in 1616. Well known for the beauty of its four arched corridors, it has also been the venue for the Pollença Classical Music Festival since 1962. The best orchestras, choirs and opera singers of the world participate in this annual event, which takes place during the summer, enjoying not only the beautiful scenery but also the excellent acoustics provided by this cloister.

(1) Dominican Friars: The Order of Preachers, also known as the Dominican Order, is a Catholic religious order founded by Spanish priest Domingo de Guzmán in 1216. Its members, the Dominican Friars, advocate a life of preaching peace to the people, having taken vows of poverty, austerity, chastity and obedience. Famed Dominicans from throughout history include Tomás de Aquino, San Vicente Ferrer and Bartolomé de las Casas.

(2) State Expropriation: Throughout the nineteenth century, Spanish liberal governments carried out a process of expropriating, nationalising and privatising many of the properties that the Catholic Church had amassed across the country. The aim of this was to boost public coffers, which were suffering heavily due to wars and the loss of colonies.

(3) Basilica floor plan: A type of architectural floor plan that dates back to Roman public buildings. It consists of a main nave separated from other lower naves by rows of columns, allowing churchgoers to focus on the chevet of the church, which is usually an apse where the high altar is found.

(4) Baroque-style: A term identified with a cultural movement and artistic style dating approximately from the seventeenth to mid-eighteenth century, characterised by excessive ornamentation. In fact, the concept was coined by its critics using the French word ‘baroque’, one translation of which is ‘extravagant’, referring to what they considered was an excess on the part of certain artists.