The events will take place on 26 September at the Presidio Theatre in San Francisco, on 28 September at the Instituto Cervantes in Chicago, and on 29 September at the Instituto Cervantes in New York.

Entitled Aita Donostia, a Leading Figure in Basque Music and Folklore, the programme will introduce American audiences to the extraordinary artistic personality of José Gonzalo Zulaica, known as Aita Donostia, combining accessible commentary with live musical performance.

Throughout the event, Okiñena will explore the different dimensions of Donostia’s career: his work as a composer, researcher and collector of Basque folklore, his connections with the major European musical currents of the early twentieth century, and the way in which he transformed traditional musical heritage into a distinctive and deeply personal creative language.

The lecture will unfold in constant dialogue with the music, interspersing works for piano with songs performed by mezzo-soprano Noelia Ibáñez. This will allow audiences to hear first-hand some of the musical examples that illuminate Aita Donostia’s creative world. The presence of the voice will particularly highlight the close relationship the composer established between orally transmitted folklore and its subsequent artistic reworking.

One of the central threads of the project is Illustrations Musicales pour la Vie Profonde de Saint François d’Assise, one of the composer’s most ambitious and distinctive creations, in which his musical language, spiritual sensibility and profound connection with Franciscan thought come together.

The tour will bring a renewed perspective on Aita Donostia to three major American cities, showing how his work, while deeply rooted in Basque culture, was also fully capable of engaging with the leading cultural and musical currents of Europe in his time.

The project is co-funded by the Basque Government.