On October 27, the Association of Composers of the Canary Islands and Canarias Radio La Autonómica will reveal the winners of the fourth edition of the Canary Islands Music Awards at a gala to be held in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
The Arrecife en Vivo festival, sponsored by the Culture Area of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, is vying for the award for Best Musical Program along with the Canarias Jazz & Más International Festival and the Miller Building. The organization seeks to recognize that programming "that promotes music performed or composed by Canarian artists in the Canary archipelago"
The jury of the Canary Islands Music Awards is composed of winners of previous editions and people "with transcendence" in the music of the islands.
The Minister of Culture of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, Alberto Aguiar, wanted to congratulate the organization of Arrecife en Vivo for its candidacy in the category of Best Musical Program in the Canary Islands Music Awards. "From the Cabildo we are strongly committed to promoting music made on the island, sponsoring both the Arrecife en Vivo festival and the AEV Channel series that highlights the history of the musical scene of Lanzarote," said the minister.
Aguiar also wanted to reflect "the pride that it means for the cultural fabric of the island that our festivals continue to reap successes in the form of nominations in prestigious awards, as they give recognition to the great work of promoting music carried out by so many organizations in Lanzarote." The minister added that "this new nomination is just another reflection of the good work that is done daily by the cultural agents of the island."
Almost a hundred Canarian artists.
"We have programmed almost a hundred Canarian artists, we support the quarry of Lanzarote giving them stages to debut in a festival and with AEV Channel we have valued the protagonists of the musical culture of Lanzarote. All this enriches the festival. It is necessary to look outwards, but it is also important to look to the side: to give the value that our musicians deserve. This nomination means a recognition of this work. I think we are one of the festivals that invests the most in Canarian quarry and scene," says Semi Gil, co-director of Arrecife en Vivo and the production company Hsmith Solutions together with Tirso Blancas.
And it is that for three editions, the Arrecife festival has established a rule: to inaugurate its four routes of live music with a macro children's concert where students demonstrate their talent and their ability to work as a team. "Without reality shows, or competitions, only passion for music." In the work philosophy of Arrecife en Vivo a commandment prevails: "We want to be a breeding ground for talent: that in a few years, Lanzarote has the highest percentage of musicians/km2 in Spain."
In the Canary Islands there have always been musical jewels that on too many occasions have gone unnoticed due to their geographical location - far from the centers of musical production - due to the lack of means or the disconnection of the pre-digital era. An example is one of the bands where Alejandro Acosta was forged that sounded one hundred percent White Stripes long before the White Stripes themselves existed.
The examples are very numerous and the specialized journalist Vicente Martín Abreu, director of En Bandeja de Plata, reviews only some of them: "Lanzarote has always been at the crest of the wave of rock, from the early sixties with the Merry Boys, Los Jóvenes or Ildefonso Aguilar, passing the baton in the seventies to Los Cangrejos or Rubicón with Luis Lachambre and entering the eighties with the color, the vitality and the new wave of Papita Rala, Cesaguely and his musicians, Besos or Rasguños or Marca Acme.
We arrived in the nineties with an explosion of bands of all styles that is reflected in the album of the I Insular Rock Circuit with names that remain until today as Inadaptados or Blackened and new groups such as Opereta Humanoide, Caleidoscopio or Zombie Love. Lanzarote is a word of the future within rock and roll."
AEV Channel
In 2020, the Arrecife en Vivo festival began working on AEV Channel: a documentary series that disseminates the work of artists who are an essential part of the effervescent musical scene in Lanzarote, historical bands, success stories and emerging artists of various musical styles. The first season consists of 28 chapters and the second, of 20 chapters, all with an average duration of less than ten minutes. The series can be seen on the YouTube channel of Arrecife en Vivo. The project is sponsored by the Culture area of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, financed by the Ministry of Culture and Sports and the European Union, and directed by the production company HSmith Solutions.
The Tourism area of Arrecife is the official sponsor of the Arrecife en Vivo festival, which in 2019 achieved international recognition, receiving the award for Best Medium Format Festival in Spain at the Iberian Festival Awards.
