A selection committee shall evaluate the applications submitted by applying the assessment criteria set out in these rules and shall draw up the respective report. The members of the selection committee are:

Alfons Martinell (co-director of the Chair)

Holds a PhD in Education from the University of Girona and a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Arts from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is a member of the Spanish Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). He served as Director General for Cultural and Scientific Relations at the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), part of Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is Honorary Director of the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policies and Cooperation and Emeritus Professor at the University of Girona. In 2024, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts by the Spanish Council of Ministers.

Bernard Meillat 

Musical advisor to the Pau Casals Foundation and artistic director of the Pau Casals International Music Festival. He has been director of Radio Classique in Paris (1991-2005) and Musiq’3 RTBF in Brussels (2006-2012).

Marc Gil 

He holds a PhD in History from the UB and teaches Contemporary History and Current World at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the UOC. Specialist in contemporary history of the Spanish State (Francoism and transition) and in history of the current world (history of international relations). He has been awarded the Serra d’Or Criticism Prize for Research 2018 in the humanities category in recognition of his work Barcelona in the service of the “New State”. Depuration of the City Council during the first Franco regime. He is a member of the consolidated research group IdentiCat of the UOC.

Miguel Ángel Elizalde

Doctor in Public International Law from UPF and degree in Law (ELDC/ULE). Currently, he is director of the Master’s in Human Rights, Democracy and Globalization (UOC) and Collaborating Professor at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation.

Joan Fuster-Sobrepere (co-director of the Chair)

Senior Professor. Former Director of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). Holds a PhD in History from Pompeu Fabra University, a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Cultural Institution Management from ESADE Business School’s Executive Education programme. He is a member of the Identicat consolidated research group. His research focuses on the political and cultural history of contemporary Catalonia, with particular emphasis on the city of Barcelona.

Jordi Pardo

Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Geography and History and a Master’s degree from ESADE. He was a member of UNESCO’s Expert Facility on Cultural Policies and Governance (2011–2015) and served on the European Commission’s panel of experts for the European Capitals of Culture programme (2012–2016). He has directed and advised cultural projects in countries across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and has been a visiting professor at several universities in Spain.

Núria Ballester 

Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Art History from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and a Master’s degree in Cultural Heritage Management and Museology from the University of Barcelona. She is Director of the Pau Casals Museum and has extensive experience in the management, conservation, research, and promotion of cultural heritage. She is responsible for the management of Pau Casals’s collections and documentary archives.

Pepe Reche 

Performer and researcher, teacher and disseminator, and manager of educational and cultural projects. French horn player specialized in early music (ESMUC) and PhD in Musicology (UAB) with the thesis The French horn quartet of the Pau Casals Orchestra. His fields of research interest are around the historical French horn players in Barcelona and their repertoires, as well as the study of the profession of musician between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. He has won the Musical Essay Prize of Juventudes Musicales de Cataluña (JM Catalonia) and FICTA Ediciones.

The selection committee has decided to award two research grants to the following projects:

The evolution of international protection mechanisms for musicians at risk. A historical perspective exploring Pau Casals’s legacy.

Project submitted by Laurence Cuny, jurist and researcher specialized in cultural rights and artistic freedom.

Research context

The research is carried out as an associated work to the doctoral thesis “La liberté artistique: un droit cultural en quête de reconnaissance” that the researcher is carrying out at the UNESCO Chair in diversity of cultural expressions of the Université Laval (Quebec, Canada) and at the Université Paris 1 Sorbonne.

Research objectives

• Investigate the protection mechanisms for musicians with a historical perspective (since 1939)
• Identify the actors involved, their motivations and justification for protecting musicians and the role of the United Nations.
• Examine the solidarity networks for musicians at the time of Pablo Casals exile.

Research questions

Do actors involved in the protection of musicians today know about Pablo Casals commitment? What are their motivations for creating these mechanisms? Are they inspired by previous initiatives? How do they see the role of the United Nations? How does the United Nations recognize the role of the arts in promoting democracy and human rights? Has this always been the case? Are musicians in exile committed to freedom and democracy? Do they engage with the United Nations as Pablo Casals did at his time? Did Pablo Casals benefit from support networks during his exile?

From Festívola to the Prelude of El Pessebre. An approach to the catalog of Pablo Casals’ musical work from his sardanas

Project submitted by Anna Costal, degree in History and Music Sciences and a PhD in Musicology from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Albert Fontelles, professor at the Institut del Teatre and at the Universitat de Vic–Universitat Central de Catalunya.

Research context

The research project presented jointly by Dr. Anna Costal and Dr. Albert Fontelles is a project that will be carried out within the framework of the Research Group in Cultural and Musical Studies (GRECUM) of the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC).

Research objectives

The critical catalog of a composer’s musical work provides performers and researchers with a valuable resource for studying the legacy of an artist and, in turn, helps to disseminate it to a wider public. This project proposes the cataloguing of the six sardanas composed by Pablo Casals as a first approach to the typology of documents that could be applied to the whole of his compositional legacy. Based on this approach, the objectives of the project are:

• To catalogue and carry out a musicological study of the sardanas that Casals composed and premiered between 1908 and 1960.
• To study the reception and the national and international impact of these works in the 20th and 21st centuries.
• To promote this part of the catalog of Pablo Casals’ musical work to performers and researchers so that it can be more widely performed and disseminated.
• To make known to a wide public the value of Casals’ sardanas as a whole.