Leonardo García-Alarcón and Cappella Mediterranea take us from the Iberian Peninsula to the New World, exploring a repertoire in which learned polyphony, religious fervour and popular traditions constantly intersect. 
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Recorded at Geneva’s Victoria Hall in 2015, “Carmina Latina” traces the routes taken by Iberian music to the American territories of the Spanish monarchy, the theme of the forthcoming Sarrebourg International Music Festival, which runs from 18 to 25 October. Under the direction of Argentinian conductor Leonardo García-Alarcón, Cappella Mediterranea, the Clematis ensemble and the Namur Chamber Choir bring sacred and secular music into dialogue, from 16th-century Spain to the great musical centres of the New World.
From the 16th century onwards, Spanish and Portuguese colonisation was accompanied by the establishment across the Atlantic of cathedrals, musical chapels and polyphonic traditions brought from Europe. But these repertoires were not simply transplanted: over successive generations, they developed through contact with new cultural contexts and local traditions, while the archives of American cathedrals today preserve an essential part of this musical history. Created in 2012, the Carmina Latina project explores precisely these exchanges between the Iberian Peninsula and the Americas.
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