12-day classical music festival starts Wednesday

The seventeenth edition of the Alfredo De Saint Malo International Academic Music Festival (ASMF 2023) will take place in multiple venues from Wednesday, June 21, to Sunday, July 2.

This activity is organized by the Fundación Sinfonía Concertante de Panamá (Funsincopa), a non-profit organization founded in 2008 by Panamanian cellist Isaac Casal.

The 2023 edition of the festival will pay tribute to Panamanian musicians Eduardo Charpentier de Castro, 1927 -, 2019) and Eduardo Charpentier Herrera (1904 – 1992).

Casal, artistic director of the festival, highlights that the festival  a cultural and artistic exchange, seeking to bring together and impact some 500 artists, children, young people, national and international musicians (from Australia, Argentina, Germany, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Cuba, United States, Italy, Uruguay, Poland, Russia and Venezuela).

The festival is held in honor of the Panamanian violin master Alfredo De Saint Malo Orillac (1898-1984).

There will be 12 days of concerts at the Balboa Theater, the Anita Villalaz Theater, the National Library of Panama City and the National Library of Boquete (Chiriquí).

“We are going to have a tremendous program of national and international artists and a large youth population that is going to participate… a week full of music and sharing,” said Casal, in an interview with La Prensa .

Isaac Casal is a renowned world-class Panamanian cellist, university professor, and promoter of academic music in Panama.

In 2008 he created the Fundación Sinfonía Concertante de Panamá, which seeks social inclusion through classical music and which currently benefits more than 150 children and young people from the most vulnerable areas of Panama City.

International artists  who will perform include American Eric Silberger (violin); the Colombian Guillermo Marin (clarinet); the Brazilian Flávio Gabriel (trumpet); the Cuban-Puerto Rican Megan Barrera (soprano), among others.

On behalf of Panama will be the duo Luis and Margarita Troetsch, and national groups such as Camerata Panama, under the direction of Víctor Mata; the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Colombian director César Leal.