The Ritual and the Cycle of Life that shape the repertory of Capella de Ministrers transcend cultural boundaries through the profound common root of the Mediterranean peoples. For centuries this mare nostrum has been a meeting ground, a space of coexistence for Jewish, Sephardic, Arab, Turkish, Greek, and many other communities, who shared languages, customs, and music in a web of exchanges and cross-fertilizations. After the expulsion of the Sephardic Jews from Spain in 1492, their communities maintained and enriched their musical and social traditions in their new settlements around the Mediterranean basin. Out of this arose a musical culture of great richness and diversity, expressed in many tongues-Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Bulgarian, Ladino-emblems of coexistence and dialogue among diverse peoples. Music is a universal language, able to convey sorrow, hope, spirituality, and the daily life of those who perform and share it. It is living testimony of collective memory and a tool of social cohesion. When we evoke places such as Casablanca, Salonika, Sofia, Ferrara, Venice, Odessa, Istanbul, Tangier, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Alexandria, Smyrna, or Jerusalem, we are giving voice to a common cultural memory and celebrating the dignity and historical wealth of the peoples of the Mediterranean. This Ritual, born of crossroads and of shared histories, embodies plurality, coexistence, and the integrative force of culture, standing against oblivion, genocide, and exclusion. To honor this legacy is itself an act of historical recognition and a pledge for coexistence, peace, and dialogue among cultures.

Soundscape of the Corpus Christi procession in Valencia (17th-18th centuries) The Feast of Corpus Christi, established in 1264 by Pope Urban IV, became one of Valencia's most important and magnificent celebrations. It's origins are tied to a Eucharistic miracle that occurred in Valencian territory-the Miracle of the Corporals of Llutxent-Daroca around 1239. This connection helped Valencia become one of the first cities in the Iberian Peninsula to organize a general Corpus Christi procession, beginning in 1355. By the 17th century, the celebration had evolved into a grand public spectacle, rich in music, theatre, and ritual. On the eve of the feast, a parade called the Cavalcada del Convit invited the populace to participate, while the afternoon featured traditional religious theatre in Valencian (els Misteris) and choreographed dances commissioned for the procession. The main procession was a stunning display involving the whole of Valencian society-from guilds to the highest civic, royal, and ecclesiastical authorities. A rich musical tapestry accompanied every step: folk instruments like the dolcainaand tabal, dramatic theatre music, ceremonial city bands, plainchant from clergy, and elaborate polyphony performed by the Cathedral's chapel. In 1672, municipal musician Josep Gomar compiled a manuscript preserving the texts and music of these plays and rituals. Today, this music offers a rare glimpse into the soundscape of baroque Valencia. This concert brings those sounds back to life, allowing audiences to relive the awe and splendor of the city's most cherished feast. Imagine yourself on a Valencian street in the late 1600s, watching and hearing the vibrant procession pass by-an unforgettable journey into the soul of a city's tradition.

The Christian tradition's liturgical repertoire prominently features Masses and Offices commemorating the life of Christ and feast days of saints. Alongside this, another significant repertoire revolves around Christ and the saints through their relics, which are venerated as physical representations of divine presence. These relics vary in significance, with those tied directly to Christ holding the highest status, followed by those connected to the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, Apostles, and holy martyrs. A notable private collection of relics belonged to the Byzantine Emperor until 1204, when it was mostly acquired by Louis IX of France, who constructed the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris to house them. Similarly, in the Kingdom of Aragon, relics were venerated in a royal context, with a collection established during the reign of Martin I. This collection included fragments of the Holy Cross, the Holy Grail, and relics of Saint George, which were later deposited in the cathedral of Valencia. This presentation of relics was not only a spiritual practice but also integrated into religious ceremonies, often accompanied by hymns and prayers. Many of these relic-based traditions have been preserved in manuscripts that reflect medieval spirituality, offering a glimpse into the deep connection between relics, music, and devotion. The music associated with these relics, though little known today, is a rich part of the medieval cultural and religious legacy.

Bicinia and Love Villancicos in the Uppsala Songbook. "Villancicos (songs) by various composers for two, three, four and five voices, now freshly revised..." (Venice, 1556) - this is the name under which the Duke of Calabria's Songbook (or the Uppsala Songbook) was printed. The selection of�villancicos�it contains is grouped under three themes: popular songs and pastoral songs; Christmas carols, and love songs. In this album we can listen to a selection from this songbook of works for two and three voices, some of them instrumental works under the title 'Polyphonic song themes", which are structured as exercises in composition around Gregorian techniques.

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This release is the first in a trilogy dedicated to Ramon Llull. The album includes pieces that represent the most influential genres of Llull’s time. These works are performed by Capella De Ministrers, conducted by Carles Magraner.

Morales' Lamentations were his best-known works, together with his Masses and Magnificats. This repertoire enjoyed an extraordinary international fame in Europe and the New World within the context of Pre-Tridentine and Post-Tridentine liturgy, owing principally to the fact that these works were composed to be performed in some of the most prestigious chapel choirs of the Renaissance. This recording by Capella de Ministrers recovers the interpretative context of this repertoire in accordance with the musical practice of Emperor Carlos V's Royal Chapel Choir, whereby the Lamentations were sung polyphonically with an instrumental accompaniment on violones.

Arrels (Roots) represents a new approach to traditional Valencian music, interpreting it through the prism of the early music repertoire. After three decades working to recover our musical heritage, Capella de Ministrers felt it was time to undertake a re-evaluation of music from the oral tradition by seeking out the links between this tradition and the oldest known compositional forms (those found in threshing songs and lullabies, in instrumental pieces with irregular beats, and in the chants of the auroros ('dawn singers') as well as the more famous boleros, fandangos and peteneras, whose commonalities of form and harmonic structure with passacaglias and ostinatos suggest that they too originated in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Arrels presents songs and instrumental pieces that trace and reaffirm the oral traditions of a rich and diverse musical world, reuniting the early music of it's manuscripts or printings with the oral traditions of it's people. Beyond "flamenco" in Spanish musical tradition.

Capella de Ministrers presents this 30th anniversary commemorative album, a live recording with a selection of instrumental works of its latest recording on Raymond Lully, a musical mixture that enjoins the dreams of all the Mediterranean shores. Raymond Lully is born in the island of Majorca ca. 1232, shortly after King James I had conquered it from the Muslims. After his apprenticeship, Lully begins his first trips on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea, in Italy, France and Tunis, with his eyes always set upon the East, the Holy Land, with a special emphasis on the idea of a “pax universalis”, an idea that was not utopian for him but both possible and necessary. He will never stop fighting for it until his last trip to North Africa and from where, once back in Mallorca, he would die. The Medieval Journey: a musical mixture that enjoins the dreams of all the Mediterranean shores, the privileged space wherein Lully would act.

Doménikos Theotokópoulos’s (El Greco) travels through 16th century Europe in search of work and patronage are mirrored in this musical journey from Crete, his birthplace, to Venice, Rome and, finally, the Spanish city of Toledo. The historically studious, oft-recorded and well-traveled group Capella de Ministrers, directed by Carles Magraner, favors the musical Spanish patrimony from medieval times up to the 19th century.

This release is the third and final installment of “Ramon Llull: l’ultim pelegrinatge.” The songs featured on this album bear traces of the Mediterranean coasts, where Llull journeyed in the last years of his life. The Capella de Ministrers conducted by Carles Magraner perform alongside the Musica Reservata Barcelona for this auspicious recording.

This new release, Peregrinatio, is the second part of the trilogy Ramon Llull: l’ultim pelegrinatge. These medieval pieces are performed by Capella de Ministrers. Carles Magraner conducts the ensemble for this recording.

Processional by the nuns of the holy, sovereign and illustrious military order of Saint John of Jerusalem (14th - 15th centuries). Music and liturgy in a noble convent: The Royal Convent of Sijena.

Capella de Ministrers was formed in 1987 in Valencia by its director, the Valencian musicologist Carles Magraner (viola da gamba). The primary importance of the group is in the focus on restoring Valencian musical culture. Part of the group's mission is the recovery of Valencian musical heritage, from their first CD of 1989 - Música Barroca Valenciana. This first release contained little-known villancicos by a number of Valencian composers: Juan Cabanilles (1644–1712), Francisco Hernández Pla (d.1722), Joseph Pradas Gallén (1689–1757), Francisco Vicente Cervera (d.1749) and Pere Rabassa (1683–1767). The productions of the group follow the historical context to musical performance and releasing books with CDs, as in the book Music and Poetry for Ausiàs March, dedicated to the 15th Century Valencian poet. The Iberian composers promoted by Capella de Ministrers cover a span of 500 years from anonymous medieval pieces such as found in the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat, El Cant de la Sibil·la, El Misterio de Elche, etc., through baroque works such as the ensaladas of Joan Brudieu, to better-known composers such as Vicente Martín y Soler. Soler's zarzuela La Madrileña (Madrid 1778) was revived by Magraner in 1996.[3] The group has also promoted a revival in public and academic interest in the Majorcan composer Antonio de Literes by performance of Los Elementos and other works.

Leonardo da Vinci's grotesque heads place us far from the search for beauty, in a world at odds with form (deformity) and the norm (abnormality). Is there music in that world? Music –which is, by definition, harmony– has historically found a role in the world of the grotesque thanks to its eternal symbiosis with the word and the body. This grotesque music program dives into those sources.

Ever since its foundation in 1987, the Capella de Ministrers ensemble, directed by Carles Magraner, has developed an important investigative and musicological task in favor of the musical Spanish patrimony, from the medieval times up to the 19th century. The result transformed into musical testimony, brings together the perfection of three key factors: the historical rigor, the musical sensibility and, specially, an uncontrollable desire to communicate and they make us participants of these experiences.

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Beginning in 1265, Capella de Ministrers wants to take listeners on the musical journey of Ramon Llull. This journey begins in Mallorca, through Barcelona, Paris, Genoa and Naples. This release shows how Llull developed throughout his compositional life as well as the influences of his travels, as it is divided into three distinct sections; Ars Antiqua, Peregrinatio and Mediterraneum.

The Middle Ages are replete with a large number of eschatological themed compositions, as well as works relating to funeral rituals.It is significant that most of the few musical pieces recoverable from ancient Hispanic liturgy belong to the Officium Defunctorum.The varied repertoire on ‘Planctus’ consists of macabre-themed works – laments, dances of death, responsories and other poetic-musical expressions in the form of antiphons and tropes, reflective of the questions humans have about the afterlife, the meaning of life and death, and the fear or hope that lies behind these questions.

The enacting of the Alhambra edict in 1492 caused a forced migration of Spain’s remaining Jews. With them traveled the liturgical texts of poets from Spain’s “Jewish golden age”, and all the music that today preserves the oral tradition, songs and poems of medieval Hispanic culture. This release represents a part of that musical legacy, a fragment of the tradition and the history of the Sephardic Diaspora. Founded in 1987, the renowned Capella de Ministrers ensemble, directed by Carles Magraner, offers historical rigor, musical sensibility and, unparalleled communicative abilities.