Sidonie, Lau Noah and Balkan Paradise Orchestra will play their music on the Rumsey Playfield stage in Central Park on Sunday, 28 July, in what will be the fifth edition of the Catalan Sounds on Tour at the SummerStage festival in New York. DJ Turmix, a Catalan living in New York, will also take to the stage to play disco, house and underground rhythms from the opening of the doors at 5 pm.
SummerStage, that attracts about 220,000 people, is one of the most renowned music and performing arts festivals in New York and every summer presents about ninety performances in Central Park and five others in the city. It is organised by the City Parks Foundation Inc, a private non-profit organisation that offers cultural, sports and educational programmes in the 750 parks of New York's five districts.
With the intention of representing the diversity of the city's cultural fabric, SummerStage promotes performances of all kinds of genres and also dedicates sessions to the music of several countries. With the help of the Institut Ramon Llull, the Catalan Sounds on Tour has brought artists such as Queralt Lahoz, Marala, Lia Kali, Mishima, Txarango, Sílvia Pérez-Cruz, La Iaia and Oques Grasses to the Central Park stage.
The Catalan Sounds on Tour concerts will start at 6 pm and end at 10 pm; entry is free. The first performance will be by Lau Noah, who will have surprise guests from New York City. The brass band Balkan Paradise Orchestra will then take to the stage, presenting their latest album, Nectar. The renowned Barcelona band Sidonie will close the night.
Catalan Sounds on Tour at SummerStage is supported by the Ministry of Culture.
Sidonie is one of Barcelona’s leading bands on the indie-rock and psychedelic rock scene. The band, which was founded in 1997 and has a portfolio of over a dozen highly successful albums, has been a constant revitalizing presence on the Spanish and Latin American music scene. Sidonie has made constant change a virtue, making them one of the most eclectic and stimulating groups to follow. After three years without a record, in 2023 Sidonie surprised the public again by presenting Marc, Axel, Jes (Sony Music), in the middle of their tour, to which the SummerStage appointment has been added. The group will also take the opportunity to premiere one of its new songs in Catalan at the Central Park event.
Balkan Paradise Orchestra is a wind and percussion band founded in early 2015. Despite taking the Balkan root sounds as a starting point, their compositions mix various world rhythms and traditions, in a heterogeneous and festive style. The BPO has an amazing ability to generate empathy with the public, while bringing joy and getting people up to dance in every corner of the world. After the acclaimed tour with Catharsis in 2023, in 2024 the Barcelona group premières their new album, Nèctar, a mainly instrumental recording that mixes styles and genres such as Balkan, disco music or electronics, but also some vocal parts. The performance at the SummerStage will be part of the Néctar Tour, along with appointments throughout the Peninsula, Europe and America.
Lau Noah is a New York-based composer, multi-instrumentalist, and self-taught artist. Characterised by her poetic compositions and her work as a counterpoint to her music, the artist was the first Catalan to perform in the Tiny Desk Concert series in 2019. Lau Noah has composed the music for several award-winning films and has performed with musicians such as Jacob Collier, Gavin Degraw and Chris Thile, with whom she toured Europe and the United Kingdom. In the autumn of 2023, she opened for Ben Folds on his UK tour. In January 2024, Noah released her first LP, A Dos, which features the collaboration of artists such as Jorge Drexler, Sílvia Pérez Cruz, Jacob Collier and Cécile Mclorin Salvant. Lau Noah's performance at SummerStage will feature collaborations that will highlight the contact between the Catalan and New York creative sectors.
