Music, songs and Japanese animation films produced by Studio Ghibli, gave life on Friday night to one of the most successful shows presented at Casa Haas during Spring Season 2023.
Artists from the Municipal Arts Center staged the Ghibli Concert inspired by the music and animated cartoons of the famous Japanese production company.
Sergio Castellanos created and directs the musical project that was born in times of pandemic.
“The idea was born in a pandemic, I started to watch the films of the Japanese production house and I thought the music was great and I said: Why not put together a concert! and I was planning, organizing it, looking for sheet music, I bought the rights to some and that was how the project was born this year, ”said Sergio Castellanos, in whom most of the concert fell by interpreting Japanese music with his inseparable piano.
The concert held at Casa Haas was sold out as the spectators, mostly young, filled the seats and the chairs placed on the side.
A dim light fell on the stage adorned with small spotlights that emitted amber light and adorned the wooden boxes and a bench on which the great Totoro’s botarga rested -spirit of the forest-, Kaonashi and various spirits from Japanese folklore called Kodamas.
The classic pieces of Japanese anime were interpreted by Sergio Castellanos on the piano, by violinist Adriana Arámburo, Orlando Idovro on the cello and lyrical interpreter Marysol Calles, while the projection of the most successful Studio Ghibli films flowed on the wall.
During the concert, the audience enjoyed melodies from movies such as “Princess Mononoke”, “My Neighbor Totoro”, “Howl’s Moving Castle”, “Spirited Away”, “Ponyo and the Secret of the Little Mermaid”, “Hill of poppies, “Porco Rosso”, and “The castle in the sky”.
At the end of the show, the public applauded and approached the artists to express feelings of emotion and gratitude.
After the applause, Sergio Castellanos commented that the concert will be presented again on June 16th at 7:00 p.m. at Casa Haas and shared that this presentation was “like an experiment” to measure the public’s response, since the idea is make a bigger concert with the musical intervention of the Ángela Peralta Choir and the CMA Children’s Choir.
