Lítore Quartet en el XX Música no Claustro Festival
Música no Claustro is a festival held every year during the first days of August in the historic city of Tui, Pontevedra. In 2026, the festival celebrated no less than its twentieth edition, with a special focus on the musical heritage preserved in the cathedral archives, the concept of mental health, and the legacy of the artists who had taken part in the festival over the previous 19 years. In this article, we would like to tell you about what we did in Tui and the people who accompanied us throughout this wonderful experience.
Our participation in this festival would not have been possible without the support of the Sociedad de Artistas Intérpretes y Ejecutantes de España (AIE) and its AIEnRuta-Clásicos programme, which we are part of in 2026. So, before we start telling you about the festival, we would like to thank AIE and, in particular, Marisa Casalengua, who accompanied us during our days in Tui as a representative of the organisation.
We had the pleasure of taking part in the press conference and presentation of the festival, held in the atrium of the Cathedral of Santa María de Tui on 27 July. We performed Pypes from William Albright’s Fantasy Etudes, which was warmly received by the audience and the institutional representatives attending the event. It was not until 2 August, however, that we returned to Tui after our experience in Kerkrade with the Agrupación Musical do Rosal. The festival provided us with a fantastic apartment next to the cathedral, where we stayed for three nights.
Our concert at the festival took place on 2 August. For the occasion, we prepared a very special programme divided into two parts.
The first part of the programme consisted of a dialogue between the sacred and the profane. The spiritual side featured arrangements of vocal music by Matías García Benayas (16.–1737) preserved in the archives of the Cathedral of Santa María de Tui: the Sanctus and Gloria from the Mass Defensor alme Hispaniae and the hymn Salutis humanae Sator. Rather than being performed consecutively, these works were interspersed with pieces inspired by the sound of the bagpipes. Bagpipers from Béla Bartók’s Transylvanian Dances, Pypes from William Albright’s Fantasy Etudes, and Aaron Siebert’s The Sobbing of the Phoenix represented the people, secular traditions, and connections between cultures.
The second part of the concert was particularly special, as we gave the premiere of Lux Glaciei by Albacete-born composer Irene Cantos. Described by Irene as a “microtonal motet”, the work was undoubtedly both a challenge and a discovery for us. On the morning of the concert, we had the opportunity to work on the piece with Irene in the cathedral cloister, which proved to be an ideal setting for her music. Thank you, Irene, for composing music of such beauty.
The following day, we attended a workshop on the care and repair of wind instruments led by Adrián Vilaboa of VIMA instruments. It was a very interesting and valuable session, in which we learned a little more about how to keep our instruments in the best possible condition. Thank you, Adrián!
For many years, we attended this festival as members of the audience. Taking part in it ourselves was a goal that had been on our list for a long time, and we are extremely grateful to have achieved it. Tui is incredibly fortunate to have a festival of this kind, and it would not be possible without the immense amount of work that Samuel Diz, Beatriz Fontán, and their entire team have been doing for so many years. What is truly admirable is not only the quality of the festival’s programming and its consistency over the years, but also the strong values that continue to guide its organisation. We are referring not only to the outstanding way in which we were treated as artists, but also to the festival’s continued support for local musicians, its respect for musical heritage, and its commitment to conveying a meaningful message to audiences through art. Congratulations, and thank you.
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