Symphonics at the Palau  

VIBRATIONS THAT MODULATE OUR WAY OF BEING TOGETHER

If tomorrow a spaceship descended. If humanity were threatened or on the verge of collapse and I found myself in the urgency of presenting to the newcomers an argument for survival, I wouldn’t hesitate in what to show them. I would bring the screen of my mobile phone close to one of their faces, and with gestures, I would invite them to first watch the OSV’s flashmob. A video that has more than 94 million views. Stop, I would say to the extraterrestrial, let yourself be moved, trust in the wonder of communal life that is the place you have just arrived at.

The philosopher R. Andrés says that music is born, at least in part, as an imitation of natural acoustic phenomena, but also as a spell. A kind of language that seeks to unveil the invisible while comforting us. The ancient Egyptians healed with singing and the company of an instrument. The Pythagorean school went further and claimed that it even had the function of governing the correct harmony of the stars in the sky. Something that more recent studies have transferred to the harmonious coexistence between people and social groups.

The French musicologist G. Brelet said in *Aesthetics and Musical Creation* that rhythm is social by origin and destiny. Because it’s not so much about how music develops, but about what music witnesses and where it can transport us. Because it’s what happens between the one playing the instrument and the other, individually and collectively. It’s this space between us, invisible, that unites us as a species.

The OSV has been cultivating this space for thirty-seven years; making it habitable and common through, yes, their specialized work and professional expertise, but also through a vocation of openness that includes all possible listeners. Music is not owned by those who make it, but by those who need it, say the OSV; they work daily to make it possible to discover that need and accompany it innovatively, cultivating emotions.

M. T. Thomas argues that all music is, essentially, about nothing. If we simplify, it all comes down to the design of tones and silences over time. That is, vibrations that appear and disappear. Yes, it’s just a physical phenomenon, but what happens with these vibrations that makes them so vital to us? Perhaps we will never be able to name it with words. But we can experience what happens in and between us when music plays; and even what happens afterward, when the performers stop playing: in a way, we remain together. A form of communion of an orchestra conceived under the principles of self-management, proximity, and inclusivity...

If tomorrow a spaceship descended from the sky... and I, by some chance unrelated to this text, found myself in the urgency of presenting them with an argument for survival... I wouldn’t hesitate to invite them to listen and be moved, to dialogue and participate in the new season of the OSV.

Àngel Mestres  
Director of Trànsit Projectes.  
Coordinator of the Master’s in Cultural Companies and Institutions at UB.