During January Tenerife hosts the Festival de Musica de Canarias, a celebration of classical music that first started in 1985.

This year will be the 26th edition of this annual celebration of classical music which uses the spectacular Auditorio de Tenerife in Santa Cruz as its venue. Most of main performances will also be repeated on Gran Canaria at the Auditorio Alfredo Kraus. The original festival was held to celebrate the anniversaries of Handel, Bach and Scarlatti, but the event has grown since then to encompass all kinds of classical styles. Over the years the festival has welcomed some of the world's most famous musicians and singers including Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras, international cellist YoYo Ma and American Soprano Cheryl Studer.

The concerts are spread over a whole month and started on the 8th January, they continue until the 7th of February.

This year's programme includes local orchestras from Tenerife and Gran Canaria, plus the Russian National Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra who played in Tenerife on 20th and 21st of January and Gran Canaria on 22nd and 23rd January. They played pieces by Szymanowsky and Shostakovich at one concert and a programme of Turnage, Beethoven and Prokofiev at the other, both under the leadership of conductor Vladimir Jurowski.

Another popular concert was the performance of Brahms' Tragic Overture by the Staatskapelle Dresden which took place on 9th January in Gran Canaria and 12th January in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Additional supporting events also take place in Lanzarote, La Gomera, La Palma and El Hierro.

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