The Department hosts major Brazilian and Catalan events
Minas - Heart of Brazil
From 8-12 October the College staged Minas – Heart of Brazil, a celebration of the arts, culture and history of Minas Gerais, one of Brazil’s most diverse and creative states in the country’s heartland, between the industrialised Southeast and the forbidding outback of the Northeast. A week-long programme of events included daily cinema screenings, theatre stagings in English and Portuguese, musical shows, and lectures and readings, and featured interpretations of classics from Minas fiction and poetry, the musical innovators of the 1970s Clube da Esquina (Corner Club) and younger artists invited from Brazil and resident in London.Highlights included: Giants of Modernist writing Carlos Drummond de Andrade and João Guimarães Rosa, "Some New Thoughts on the Minas Conspiracy" - a lecture by Prof Kenneth Maxwell, the pioneering cinema of Humberto Mauro, three original dramas: “Drina”, “Todas Elas” and “O Amor no Grande Sertão”, and a musical journey through the sounds of Minas Gerais, “Coração Mineiro”, with vocal group Nossa Voz.
Raimon Concert
On 10 October a packed Great Hall heard the celebrated Valencian singer Raimon perform a selection of his songs spanning his fifty-year career. Raimon is one of the major voices of protest in Spain from the Franco era as well as a successful artist in several genres of songs since then, and he is widely respected in many parts of Europe. King’s was one of five Europe universities (Berlin, Paris, Luxembourg, Rome, and King’s) where Raimon has taken his supporting instrumentalists and technicians to hold concerts to mark the half century since he wrote and performed his first song, “Al vent” (“In the wind”). The atmosphere in the Great Hall, where an important contingent from the London Catalan and Valencian communities was present, was nothing less than electric, and there was frequent applause at well-loved numbers still performed by Raimon with his distinctive and voice, as forceful as ever even at his seventy-two years.