The Barnasants Festival is a great international festival featuring artists who sing their own songs, held in different venues in Barcelona. It takes its name from the Sants district, where the festival was originally based. It was first held in 1996. It is directed by cultural activist Pere Camps, winner of the National Music Award 2012, and is the most important festival of its kind. The concerts have taken place in various iconic venues: Sala Luz de Gas, Cotxeres de Sants, Harlem Jazz Club, L’Auditori, BTM, and Palau de la Música Catalana, among others.
The list of singers who have participated in the Festival is very long and includes Silvio Rodríguez, Javier Krahe, Joan Isaac, Ismael Serrano, Jaume Sisa, Marina Rossell, Luis Pastor, Ana Belén, Tomeu Penya, Martirio, Francesc Pi de la Serra, Daniel Viglietti, José Antonio Labordeta, Luis Eduardo Aute, Quilapayún, Inti-Illimani, Lluís Llach, Toti Soler, Manolo Tena, Pablo Guerrero and Franca Masu. Pere Camps, who relishes a challenge, is out to conquer Spain this year, with a Barnasants Festival in Madrid, featuring Catalan singers.
LiberPress Song Award 2016
Barnasants, a unique festival of music by singer-songwriters, is diverse, anti-establishment, promotes solidarity and has stood the test of time. Conceived, created and directed by Pere Camps, a brilliant rebel, in love with culture, music, commitment and freedom, it received the 2016 LiberPress Song Award because it has given a voice to committed songwriters, both old and new, inside and outside Catalonia, bringing the music that we used to call “protest songs” and now refer to as “songs of resistance” to everyone in this country, whatever their background.