Pablo Casals Festival

The Pablo Casals Festival, held every July and August in Prades and surrounding venues including the Abbey of Cuxa, is one of the oldest and most respected chamber music festivals in France. It was founded in 1950 around the great Catalan cellist Pablo Casals, who lived in Prades in exile from Franco's Spain, and it continues to attract international soloists and ensembles to the mountain town each summer.

Performances take place in the Église Saint-Pierre, in the abbey cloister by candlelight, and in outdoor venues. The acoustic of the Romanesque buildings is extraordinary, and the combination of serious music and remarkable architecture gives the festival a quality quite unlike most summer music events. Tickets should be booked well in advance for the abbey concerts.

things to do sight
A story
Pablo Casals fled Spain after Franco's victory in the Civil War and settled in Prades in 1939, refusing to perform publicly until democratic values were restored. He remained in self-imposed exile for years, breaking his silence only in 1950 when a group of musicians convinced him to participate in a festival celebrating the bicentennial of Bach's death. The first Prades Music Festival, in that year, included performances by Isaac Stern, Rudolf Serkin and other major artists who came to the Pyrenees specifically to play with Casals.