XENSEMS. Conservatoris professionals de música i dansa

XENSEMS is the ENSEMS Music Festival’s educational project organised by the Valencian Institute of Culture. It is a programme geared towards experimentation and sound creation for all kinds of audiences, with special emphasis on children and young people. This year, the aim is to give continuity to a proposal that we began in the previous one: to provide children and young people with the ability to express themselves artistically via composition materials created especially for them. This means going beyond the educational aspect that this material provides so as to enable them to express and share music on stage regardless of their age or musical level, expanding the limits of what we call education as regards artistic creation. 

This time, two groups of children and young students of elementary and professional levels will be taking part. On the one hand, the “Guitarrist José Tomás” Professional Conservatory of Music will be participating, along with the “José Espadero” Professional Dance Conservatory of Alicante. On the other, there will be the Utiel Professional Conservatory of Music, the Mariano Pérez Sánchez Professional Conservatory of Music of Requena, and the Valencia Higher Conservatory of Music’s composition classroom. Composers David Leal and Joan Gómez will be tasked with creating the pieces for the two groups. 

Taking the umbrella concept upon which this year’s ENSEMS festival is based as a point of reference, the educational project explores play as a dialogue, bridge or window with the social and cultural reality of each era and context. It is play understood as a way of rehearsing, interpreting and making sense of the world.

The works by the two composers chosen for the educational project, David Leal and Joan Gómez, explore this idea through the absurd and satirical language of the writer Lewis Carroll and his work Alice trough the Looking Glass.