European Commission

The main guests are Polyfonias, a renowned European multilingual poetry project, spearheaded by Danish poet Peter Wessel, accompanied by his two sidemen, guitarrist Mark Solborg and Spanish clarinettist Salvador Vidal. Completing the line-up will be fellow Maltese multilingual poet Antoine Cassar.

The event will marking the European Day of Languages, celebrated annually throughout Europe on the 26th September. A wide range of events will be organised throughout the continent to promote cultural and linguistic diversity and to encourage children and adults alike to learn languages.

Wessel’s experiments with oral poetry and music in dialogue with the Danish-Argentinian composer and guitarist Mark Solborg were presented to the public in a trio setting in March 2008 at La Casa Encendida, Madrid’s most prestigious venue for avant-garde art and culture and also an important center for research into and development of means to prevent social, racial and religious exclusion. Four months later, one of his poems, Un Idioma Sin Fronteras, won the Second Prize in the international art competition 2008culturas.com, organized by the Spanish Ministry of Culture to mark the European Year for Intercultural Dialogue. Since September 2008 the trio has given recitals at festivals and cultural institutions in Rome, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Galway on a tour sponsored by the Spanish Cervantes Institute.

This is not the first time that Polyfonias will be sharing the stage with Antoine Cassar. Since presenting his latest book Mużajk, an exploration in multilingual verse (Edizzjoni Skarta, 2008) at the Leipzig book fair and Berlin Literaturwerkstatt last March, over the past few months Cassar was invited to perform his poetry at a number of literary festivals and events across western Europe, including a common reading with Polyfonias at the Copenhagen Literaturhaus, and at the Poesiefestival Berlin, one of the biggest literary events in Europe.

During the evening there will also be a performance by the Santa Maria Accordion Band.

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