Artistic Director
"The whole point about getting involved with artistic direction is getting the actual artist to design the way music is offered to the audience. For me it is just another side of performing and teaching. It is a little bit like creating music. Nowadays people's mind is set up for primarily visual experiences of duration like the one of the TV shows and cinema in their countries. There are many interesting studies about that out there. Cinema and TV have taken a leading role in how people perceive performing expression. That doesn't mean people can't understand music, particularly long pieces. That means that, depending on the country, people are not used to focus on their ears for the regular time of an organ piece, and their conscience gets distracted by the surrounding elements easily. I'm not talking about music lovers; I'm talking about the average middle class citizen. For that reason, when designing musical venues, I pay extraordinary attention to those elements that may look secondary, because those elements can damage seriously the appreciation of a good organ piece by causing distraction. I try to integrate the whole environment in the locations where music making is going to take place, and try to find a way to direct all that environment strictly into the direction of the music performed. I try to turn every element of distraction into an element of reinforcement of the musical experience. Lighting is, let say, is the most visible part of the whole strategy -specially on nice pictures-, but the programming, the way venues are advertised, the preconcert, timings, rhythm of the "liturgy" of the venue, hand programs, sits, accommodation process, the whole environment plays an essential role in the listener. I try to carefully design the whole thing in order to: get the audience excited about the music they are going to listen, prevent them from distracting away from the music, and having them feeling free, open and relaxed to enjoy and express their enjoyment. And I design all that with the final target of improving the quality of the music in people's life. The better the music they get used to live and filter through their souls, the better the people and the social dynamics will be. After all my work as artistic director, during the concerts I organize, I always close my eyes and focus on the music my own way; what I don't expect is the whole Universe having to experience music the same way I do. I feel that´s being realistic". Raul Prieto Ramirez