It is the planet’s premier festival of cutting-edge music, a platform for what’s new in new media. It’s Sónar, and it’s going on now in beautiful Barcelona.
For Spaniards, the otherworldly electronic music and arts festival couldn’t come at a better time. Preoccupied with finances, Barcelona needs a bonafide escape from the everyday. This is it.
More than 80,000 aficionados of electronica have gathered here in the past to live for the moment and to hope for the future. The festival is split by the clock, its artistic program bifurcated. There’s Sónar by Day, part of whose purpose is to search out new talent. The music is exciting and elementally edgy. Then there’s Sónar by Night. That’s when the stars of advanced music and new media come out to play and perform.
Among the luminaries set to perform during Sónar 2102 are New Order, The Roots, Hot Chip, Richie Hawtin, Friendly Fires, James Murphy and Lana Del Rey.
Even as Sónar proper steals the show there’s a series of parallel events going on, exciting stuff meant to prime your mind. Look for them at Auditori, Barcelona’s main music auditorium and Cosmocaixa, the city’s science museum.
Barcelona becomes a place of creative ferment about this time of year as audiences hungry for new ideas descend on the city – along with advanced music professionals from the world over. They network, connect and create. Just being in Barcelona during Sónar stimulates the senses.
While it’s probably a bit late to book a flight for this year’s 19th iteration of Sónar, it’s not too soon to start planning for 2013.
There’s ample nonstop air from the United States to Barcelona. Delta makes the trip from Atlanta and New York Kennedy, American from Miami and JFK, and US Airways from Philadelphia.
(Image: petercruise)
