José Carreras occupies a privileged position in the music world. Born in Barcelona, he studied music in his hometown. In 1970 he started his professional career in the Gran Teatre del Liceu of Barcelona with Nabucco and Lucrezia Borgia.

In 1972, Ovation magazine described the voice of a young man making his debut as Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly at the New York City Opera. It was "a honeyed lyric tenor, richly coloured, clear and true and possessing a sensual beauty that is quite extraordinary." The young man with the sensuously beautiful voice was José Carreras.

He was born on December 5, 1946 in Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, a region of Spain with a unique cultural life and language. (Carreras’ true first name is Josep, the Catalan version of José.) The youngest of Antonia Coll-Saigi and Josep Carreras-Soler’s three children, he has described his childhood as happy and completely carefree. This is quite a tribute to his parents, given the dire economic conditions in Spain during the years following that country’s Civil War. The family briefly emigrated to Argentina in 1951 in what proved to be an unsuccessful search for a better life, returning to Barcelona less than a year later. Carerras’ father, his teaching career ruined because he had fought on the Republican side during the Civil War, eventually had to take a job as a traffic policeman, and his mother opened a small hair-dressing shop.

It has been said of many great singers that they have an almost physical need to sing, a need that can express itself when they are very young. Carreras was no exception. As a child he truly loved to sing. He sang to the passengers on the steamship from Argentina back to Barcelona. He sang to the customers in his mother’s hair-dressing shop. And, after he came home from seeing Mario Lanza in The Great Caruso, he sang to his family all the arias that Lanza had sung in the film - especially la ‘Donna e Mobile’ which seemed to hold a special fascination for him. Whenever his family suggested that his constant singing, although impressive might just be starting to drive them crazy, the six year old happily locked himself in the bathroom and kept right on singing.

MISA CRIOLLA

Written in 1963 by Ariel Ramirez, Misa Criolla has become one of the most wellknownand oft-performed South American choral works throughout the world.

A product of the composer's long study of Argentine folk music, the piece synthesizes popular and liturgical styles, drawing on the rhythms and melodies of Argentina and other South American cultures. Entirely based on traditional rhythms (chacarera, carnavalito, estilo pampeano), it is also one of the first masses to be celebrated in a modern language - being contemporary to the Second Vatican Council.

LAST MISA CRIOLLA DATES

9th, 12th and 14th July 2010 - Nessun Oggetto - Milan´s Duomo (Italy)