|
Annual Events in Guanajuato
International Cervantino Festival (In October)
This annual event is the most important artistic and cultural festival in Mexico and all Latin America. It has been held annually without interruption since 1972, year in which it began, and it has as its stage the city of Guanajuato, founded in 1546 and declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1988.
Guanajuato is also the capital of the state of the same name, known as the Cradle of Mexican Independence.
In its early years, the festival's main events were shows and performances in the Spanish language, as a tribute to Miguel de Cervantes. As time went on, the universal dimension of the annual festival became more and more noticeable in the great diversity of cultural and artistic expression which has come to be a part of it.
The International Cervantino Festival showcases the best in classical, popular and folk music; opera, theater, dance, visual arts and film. These art forms take over the city of Guanajuato, converting it into a center of artistic pilgrimage for thousands upon thousands of visitors that come from all over Mexico and the world. Today, there are very few countries that have not sent some of their finest artists to participate in the Cervantino Festival, a fiesta for the mind and the senses.
International Organ Festival (May)
The "Guillermo Pinto Reyes" International Organ Festival of the city of Guanajuato owes its existence to the city's cultural leaders, who were convinced of the artistic value of these fine instruments which are housed in each of five important churches in the city.
This festival is named for one of the finest Mexican organists ever to compose or play, Guillermo Pinto Reyes, who has bestowed upon Guanajuato his original compositions as well as his contributions as a teacher, having himself studied under renowned Mexican composer Miguel Bernal Jimenez and the international greats Nadia Boulanger and Marcel Dupre.
This year's will be the seventh annual festival. Although participating organists have traditionally been Mexican, international musicians have also joined in.
One feature that continues to make this festival grow in the world's eye and in importance, both for the general public and for professional musicians, is the goal of annually producing a composition to be played on Guanajuato's pipe organs.
In addition to the pleasure we derive from listening to these instruments' voices, the festival is an excuse for us to visit the beautiful churches which house them: the Basilica of Our Lady of Guanajuato, the Church of the Compañía, the Church of San Diego, the Church of San Cayetano at Valenciana, and the Church of Mellado.
International Short Film Festival "Expresión en corto" (July)
"Expresión en corto" has become the biggest film festival in Mexico and one of the most important in Latin America, thanks to synergy of the drive, convictions and hard work of cinephiles. Missionaries in search of fertile ground for new ideas, we search out and call out for spaces where accomplished film-makers can work together with new pioneers of visual representation, avid for more and better films. We receive messages from all over the world; the common thread is that for each one of us, film is a drug which runs through our veins, an exhilarating mixture of fiction and reality in secret proportions.
Experience the Magic - Vive la Magia (March-September)
Fine weekend cultural events at the Teatro Juárez.
Book Fair (before Holy Week)
In this fair, a variety of publishers display books for sale in the Plaza San Fernando. The fair is held concurrently with the Cultural Week of the University of Guanajuato, with its artistic and cultural events.
Back to:
Spanish in Mexico
Spanish in Latin America
Spanish courses
|
|
|
Send to a friend
