Tica soprano Iride Martínez and almost 40 other artists from mostly Europe and North America are to fill Costa Rica with the sound of classical music as the 18th Credomatic Music Festival gets rolling next month, Aug. 2-17.
With the program almost set, festival director Jordi Antich gave reporters a sneak peak of the lineup Saturday at Reserva Conchal, a lavish resort hotel at Playa Conchal in the northwestern Guanacaste province, one of the hosts and sponsors of this year’s festival. Complete dates and names should be available by the end of this week, he said.
Highlights will include Italian pianist Francesco Libetta, whom the New York Times once called “a poet-aristocrat of the keyboard with the profile and carriage of a Renaissance prince”; Colombian a cappella group Vocal Sin Tiempo; as well as soprano Martínez, who, having graced opera houses around the globe, is “the Costa Rican artist who has achieved the most success in classical music worldwide,” according to Antich.
Antich told The Tico Times he is also particularly excited about the arrival of Berlin Brass, a group packed with disciples of the German city’s greatest brass musicians that Antich has been courting for at least three years.
Besides at its San José headquarters, the National Theater, the festival will offer concerts at venues across the country, including a Caribbean venue at Earth University. Most concerts outside the capital are scheduled for the first week, leading up to an official inaugural show at the National Theater on Aug. 9.
Free shows will also be scheduled inside churches, such as San Ramon, Las Mercedes, Don Bosco and the Metropolitan Cathedral.
