The Museu de la Música presents the exhibition ‘Josep Cercós. Rara avis’

The exhibition Josep Cercós. Rara avis delves into the life, work, and intellectual legacy of one of the most unique and little-known Catalan composers of the 20th century.

It can be visited from February 26th until May 17th at the Museu de la Música.

The exhibition: objects, context, and intimacy

The exhibition Josep Cercós. Rara avis, part of the “Cercós Year” and curated by Bernat Cabré and Helena Martín-Nieva, proposes a journey that goes far beyond a simple chronology. Visitors will find a repertoire of objects related to his life and his creative process as a composer and intellectual. Original programs, manuscript scores, articles published by himself, records, and recordings that engage in a dialogue with works of art closely linked to the composer.

The tour is complemented by an audiovisual report produced specifically for the occasion by Carme Puche, which speaks directly to the exhibition content and broadens the perspective on the composer.

More information and tickets here.

Who was Josep Cercós?

Josep Cercós i Fransí (Barcelona, 1925-1989) is one of the most relevant yet most invisible figures in contemporary Catalan music. An excellent pianist and a composer of extraordinary intellectual ambition, his career was marked by a double discomfort: political and aesthetic.

Cercós was a self-declared anti-Francoist in a context where many creators chose discretion or silence. This stance led to evident difficulties in his public projection. When Franco died, Cercós was fifty years old: his youth and early maturity had been, in large part, silenced.

Cercós was also a fundamental and uncomfortable presence within avant-garde circles. In 1956, he became the first Catalan composer to go abroad to train with the European avant-garde, placing himself at the forefront of musical modernity. However, in the late 1960s, he openly distanced himself from the avant-garde trend.