Lanzarote Visual Music Festival

Introduction

The Lanzarote Visual Music Festival was created in 1989, following a suggestion made by artist Ildefonso Aguilar and sponsored by the Cabildo of Lanzarote. The Festival is an outstanding artistic event based on the combination of avant-garde music with different artistic forms of expression in perfect harmony with the unique features of the natural stage landscapes of Lanzarote, such as the Jameos del Agua and Cueva de los Verdes Auditoriums.

From the get-go of the Festival, the perfect combination of new music and a unique volcanic landscape, drew the interest of contemporary musicians such as Brian Eno and Michael Brook, among others, which helped this Festival become one of the most attractive and extraordinary avant-garde music events in the world during its 13 consecutive editions that went from 1989 to 2002.

In 2017, after fifteen long years, the Cultural Area of the Cabildo of Lanzarote has rescued this innovative music event, highly demanded by locals and visitors. The Festival aims to bring back the prestige and cultural repercussion that an initiative such as this means for Lanzarote, and to turn it into a unique artistic option that will help consolidate the island as high standard cultural destination, able to attract those who intend to discover a one-of-a-kind musical experience surrounded by Lanzarote’s stunning landscape.

Origin

Lanzarote is a subtle and outstanding volcanic territory, with extraordinary spaces perfect for cultural manifestations of nature. The combination of the volcanoes and the quiet work of local farmers on a hostile land, helped shape a landscape where there have always been delicate sounds that can be heard by attentive and excited viewers. Therefore, the composition and performance of new music can find in Lanzarote the perfect set, which results in a revealing symbiosis.

In order to promote this idea, under the suggestion of artist Ildefonso Aguilar, in 1985, the Cabildo of Lanzarote invited musician and producer Brian Eno to visit the island, and they then agreed to carry out a series of concerts, in January 1987, called Two Opal Evening. In 1989, after the positive response the previous concerts had, the Cabildo of Lanzarote, alongside Ildefonso Aguilar as sponsor and director, started to work on the Lanzarote Visual Music Festival.

The Festival has its roots in the local landscape and the unique environment that surrounds the island of Lanzarote, that make it the ideal setting to perceive and reproduce the sounds of compositions by the avant-garde musicians that take part in each edition. What they have in common is their search for new ways of musical expression, avoiding conventional methods.

Stage areas

Throughout the different editions of the Festival, there have been plenty of natural areas and unique buildings used to hold the concerts of the Festival, but it has been two volcanic bubbles, turned into auditoriums, the ones that have become its main headquarters. The Auditoriums of Jameos del Agua and Cueva de los Verdes, set up as volcanic caves with a perfect symbiosis between art and nature, the senses of viewers are exposed to the most suggestive and innovative sounds.

In this edition of the Festival, the programme will consist of six main concerts that will be held in the Auditoriums of Jameos del Agua, Cueva de los Verdes and Convento de Santo Domingo, as well as other gatherings, training sessions and film screenings that will take place at the Cultural Innovation Centre El Almacén.

Besides these two main spaces, there are other stages where concerts are held, such as Volcán del Cuervo, the old volcanic ash quarry of Montaña de Tahíche and the convents, Convento de San Francisco and Santo Domingo in Teguise, as well as the Iglesia de San Ginés church and Playa de El Reducto in Arrecife.