Innovation and digitisation are the key new features

10 years after the ‘Palau Case’, the Palau de la Música Catalana explains in a documentary how the organisation has been reborn

Today, Friday, 12 July, 2019, the Fundació Orfeó Català-Palau de la Música Catalana presented its 2019-2022 Strategic Plan. The presentation of the Plan marks 10 years since the ‘Palau Case’ corruption scandal came to light. The scandal shook not only the institution itself but also the whole society for which the Palau de la Música Catalana concert hall and the Orfeó Català choir are a symbol of Catalan culture and Catalonia itself. The organisation has worked intensively over these 10 years to turn the crisis into an opportunity, reviving the organisation, transforming it and, particularly, restoring the dream by developing a solid artistic project which at the same time brings it closer to the whole community and regains the values for which it was founded.

Therefore, this new Strategic Plan represents a new era. Along with all its stakeholders (government bodies, public authorities, members of the Orfeó Català, employees, singers, families of the choirs, patrons, promoters, partner companies and the general public), the Palau aims to continue growing and improving the lives of people every day through music and culture.

The new plan builds on the previous one, adding the new strategic value of innovation. Those contained in the previous Plan continue to be key elements: excellence, participation, social commitment and a Catalan identity. These values will be given greater emphasis, especially innovation, which was already present and is now made explicit and emphasised through the concepts of ‘modernity’, ‘creativity’ and ‘risk’ as focal points for the next period.

Aims of the Strategic Plan
The new Strategic Plan is based essentially on the continuity of the previously defined objectives:

• Strong choral focus
• Programmes with their own character
• Increase in audiences
• Educational programme
• Participation of the community
• Social commitment
• Heritage
• Internationalisation
• Efficiency

New features of Strategic Plan
During the new period 2019-2022, there will be five major strategic developments:

• The launch and development of Palau Digital, the new platform for the dissemination of audiovisual content to reach all audiences.
• The implementation of qualitative processes, which entails a search for indicators of excellence and quality in the project: obtain feedback on various lines of activity through evaluation questionnaires, satisfaction surveys, interviews, etc.
• Generate a feeling of community and belonging and establish relational networks between all the Palau stakeholders: members of the Orfeó Català, audiences and season ticket holders, performers, patrons and other groups.
• Expand the programme, further developing the related activities and exploring the inclusion of other musical styles, through more activity in the Petit Palau and with diverse musical genres, such as world music or jazz.
• Extend the Social Project and the Educational Project, consolidating and giving visibility to both projects: we need to assess and quantify the contribution of the Clavé XXI Social Project to the community and the families involved in it, and also work on the impact of the Palau's Educational Project.

The development of the new Strategic Plan is the result of a long process of collaboration between all the departments of the organisation, in which the heads of department, staff, singers and members of the Orfeó Català, as well as the Board members and Trustees of the Foundation have been involved in reflecting the institution's objectives.

Through this consensus and the participation of all the stakeholders, the Fundació Orfeó Català-Palau de la Música Catalana seeks to become an innovative institution, with solid roots in Catalonia and a desire to improve society through the artistic excellence of its musical programme, choir and heritage, which all convey universal values and underpin Catalan culture, with a financial stability that allows the development of the programme and the overall sustainability of the project.

The Strategic Plan 2019-2022 is viewed as a living document, a working tool under constant review that sets out all the institution’s areas for action, in view of the reality of a changing environment that requires responses to the new needs and  times.

The Resurrection of the Palau de la Música Catalana
On 23 July this year, it will have been 10 years since the ‘Palau case’ became public. In this context, alongside the presentation of the new Strategic Plan, the Palau shares a documentary that tells, for the first time, how the transformation has been experienced internally and how, following the crisis, the institution has been reborn. This initiative forms part of one of the aspects of the new Plan, which is the creation and dissemination of content through Palau Digital.

The documentary tells the story of one of the most important events that has taken place in Catalonia and  has affected culture and music, and how the institution, after suffering from such an exceptional event, has recovered and has been revived, putting into practice a transparent, modern and innovative cultural management model.