As part of the 17th Annual Latin American Opera Conference, from 12 to 24 November, the first edition of the NóM Festival will also take place, featuring new creations, heritage recoveries, and concerts across six regions of the country. Additionally, on 15 and 16 November, the seminar “Academia-Industria Dialogues on Music and Performance in Ibero-America” will be held at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

In the context of the 17th Annual Ópera Latinoamérica Conference, the Festival NóM – Nueva ópera y música will also be held. This unprecedented collaborative initiative, conceived in 2023 and organised by OLA, involves fourteen venues from various regions of Chile programming – from 12 to 24 November – new Chilean creations.

The festival will showcase new operas such as El viaje de la Garza Andrés (Teatro Educativo de las Artes, Panguipulli), with music by Andrés Pérez and direction by Felipe Castro, which combines music, dance, and theatre to explore themes of identity and mourning. In southern Chile, Teatro Biobío will premiere Hijas del Mundo by Catalan Marian Márquez, part of the Oh!pera programme from the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, which will have its first international version in Chile. The Teatro Municipal de Chillán will present three short operas, each lasting 15 minutes: El sombrero seleccioonador and Formas de ganar el cielo by Miguel Farías, and Recursos humanos by Cristián Fernández.

La abeja de fuego, estreno del Municipal de Santiago.

In Santiago, the Municipal Theatre will premiere La abeja de fuego – by Andrés Maupoint and Isidora Stevenson – a new opera based on the life of writer María Luisa Bombal, while Matucana 100 will stage a musical theatre production of Fuenteovejuna, produced by Tryo Teatro Banda. The Mercado Urbano Tobalaba (MUT) will be part of the festival with Two Angels Play I Spy, a street-art opera written and produced by Dumbworld, projected on level -3, at the exit of Tobalaba metro station. At CorpArtes, a concert version of the three finalists from the first Creative Lab Latin American New Opera Competition, organised by the Institute of Music at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and OLA, will be performed.

En el Mercado Urbano Tobalaba se proyectará la street-art opera Two Angels Play I Spy, de la compañía Dumbworld.

The festival will also highlight two Baroque rescues, both by Jesuit priest Franz Lang, whose scores were found at the Recoleta Dominica in Santiago and rescued by musicologist Gonzalo Cuadra. The Universidad Alberto Hurtado will present Amor parricida, a work warning about the dangers of overly indulgent child-rearing. Teatro Cinema Porvenir, in Tierra del Fuego, will stream El demonio mudo, a production from the Municipal Theatre of Santiago that premiered in 2023. The song cycle Winterreise, written in 1827 by German composer Franz Schubert from poems by Wilhelm Müller, will come to life on stage as a psychological drama in El viaje de invierno, an adaptation by the company Lírica Disidente to be presented at the CEINA cultural centre.

El Ciclo Clásica No Convencional (CNC) estará a cargo de la inauguración del NóM con un concierto en Mercado Urbano Tobalaba.

Music will also be part of Festival NóM, which will feature an inaugural concert of Latin American repertoire in the garden of MUT, performed by Solístico de Santiago and Clásica No Convencional (CNC), a project offering innovative musical experiences in unconventional spaces. The programme, conducted by Virginia Vergara, will include works by Lucía Jiménez, Florencia Novoa, Inés Muñoz, Manuel Segura, and Enrique Soro. The CEAC theatre of the University of Chile will participate with the concert Across America, with Across by Andrés Alcalde, dedicated to architect Alberto Cruz, will be premiered, along with Aaron Copland’s Symphony No. 3.

En el CEAC de la U. de Chile se presentará el concierto Across América.

Other venues linked to the performing arts and music that will be part of the first edition of the Festival NóM through guided visits and workshops include Espacio Checoeslovaquia, a centre for artistic and technical residencies that sees culture as a transformative social experience, promoting dialogue and community building; the Museo del Sonido, which explores the history and impact of musical recording and media; and Teatro del Lago, which fosters creativity and communication, connecting communities.

Seminar: Academia-Industry Dialogues on Music and Performance in Ibero-America

Between 15 and 16 November, the Oriente Campus of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile will host the first edition of the seminar Academia-Industry Dialogues on Music and Performance in Ibero-America, which will uniquely bring together creators and researchers with managers from various theatres in the region. The seminar will feature workshops, presentations by speakers, panels, and collaborative work on-site, facilitating interactions between theatre experts and academics. The focus will be on discussing how to create more scalable and innovative projects, as well as how to programme differently.