The La Sierra de Ballobar Forest Park and the village of Cardiel, in Fraga, will be the venues for the second weekend of the Sounds in Nature Festival organized by the Provincial Council of Huesca
The La Sierra de Ballobar Forest Park and the village of Cardiel, in Fraga, will host the second weekend of the fifth edition of the Sounds in Nature Festival, organized by the Huesca Provincial Council. Sara Fontán, from Catalonia, and Soema Montenegro, from Argentina, headline the festival's mini-tour of the Bajo Cinca region, where the fifth SoNna Huesca will return on August 31st with a performance by Mattheu Saglio at the Valonga Estate.
The Sounds in Nature Festival, SoNna Huesca, will travel to the Bajo Cinca region next weekend, visiting Ballobar on Saturday and the village of Cardiel (Fraga) on Sunday. Catalan artists Los Sara Fontán and Argentinian singer-songwriter Soema Montenegro complete a 100% musical program that couldn't be more diverse. The electronic music of Los Sara Fontán and the folk music of Soema Montenegro will share the spotlight on a route that will explore the lush Cinca River valley and the Monegros steppes surrounding Fraga.
The La Sierra de Ballobar Forest Park is a traditional venue for the SoNna Huesca festival. In 2023, it hosted a performance by the Galician luthier and musician Abraham Cupeiro, and in 2022, the Neopercusión show. Nestled in the shade of the Ballobar riverbanks, where the Alcanadre and Cinca rivers meet, lies the charming La Sierra Forest Park, a wooded green space with a picnic area, a recreation area, and a fountain. A trail begins here that leads to the top of the riverbanks (GR-261).
This Saturday, the makeshift stage will host Los Sara Fontán (8:30 pm), staunch advocates of independent music and a rare anti-industry act. Three years of constant touring since their formation in 2019, without recording a single song or video, took them across much of Europe and transformed them into a fleeting enigma, turning each concert into a unique, one-of-a-kind ritual that only lingered in the memories of those who had experienced it. The experimental duo offered their weapons: a violin, a keyboard, and drums, along with an arsenal of pedals, effects, and other resources, but refused to allow anything to be recorded.
When they decided to record their album Queda pendiente last year , nobody could believe it. In the end, they relented, much to the delight of their fans. But Queda pendiente isn't a summary of their five years together; it's a true reflection of who Los Sara Fontán are right now. Recorded live, it's a vibrant, contemporary, and powerful album; an exercise in sonic freedom that transforms into a wild celebration in their live shows, where polyrhythms, silences, and sonic pressure make us feel like Los Sara Fontán are doing whatever they want with us.
Soema Montenegro in Cardiel
On Sunday, the SoNna Huesca festival will travel to the nearby village of Cardiel (Fraga), which was abandoned in the mid-20th century and later became a filming location for Spaghetti Westerns , a genre that was filmed in Spain and Italy in the 1960s and 70s, resulting in over 500 films. Nearly 30 of those productions filmed exterior scenes in this area of Aragon, in places like Chalamera, Alcolea de Cinca, and Ballobar, but especially in the village of Cardiel, 12 kilometers from Fraga in the direction of Zaragoza.
There, between 1965 and 1972, the Balcázar brothers, together with the director and screenwriter F. Iquino, made two dozen films that alternated their filming between Esplugues de Llobregat, where the sets, the saloon, the barbershop or the watering trough were located, and the Fraga village of Cardiel, where the exteriors were filmed.
In the desert landscape of the Monegros, Soema Montenegro (8:30 pm) will find the echo of Argentine Patagonia. They say that the Latin American land recites through her voice. An experimental singer and composer, Soema Montenegro blends the sounds and images of the jungle, desert, and mountains of South America with her original poetry, all from her base in Buenos Aires. Critics consider her a unique voice on the contemporary South American music scene.
The Argentinian artist fuses the diverse latitudes of Latin America into a musical whole that interprets folklore, native song, and urban music. A researcher of the Latin American voice, she recovers and teaches the ancestral, indigenous voice; the resonant song that emanates from the landscape. She is often referred to as a poet-shaman. She was part of the female vocal improvisation trio Adivina, which became the foundation of her experimental and research work, and the space where she trained alongside her studies in Musical Composition. At SoNna Huesca, she will present Círculo Radiante (2023), her fifth album, following Uno Una Uno (2008), Passionaria (2011), Ave del Cielo (2014), and Camino a la Templenza (2019), a work that for her is “an embrace of the land,” an immersive sonic ode to the sounds of Latin America, its landscapes, and its people.
Reservations will cost €1 per person – https://www.dphuesca.es/sonna-invitaciones
Ballobar. La Sierra Forest Park
July 6th. 20:30 PM
Music. Capacity: 300
Fraga. Village of Cardiel
July 7th. 8:30 p.m.
Music. Capacity: 250
In August, SoNna will visit the Valonga Estate in Belver de Cinca.
