After the successful edition of 2024, in which more than 2000 people enjoyed twenty concerts and other activities, the festival Música Urbana Valencia MUV! returns on February 21st and 22nd with renewed energy, more musical activities than ever and a new image created by Alera Studio.All thanks to the renewed collaborations with Teatre el Musical, ACIPMAR (Association of Traders, Industrialists and Professionals of Marítimo), Caixa Popular, the new public cultural centres of the neighbourhood – the Escorxador Cultural Centre and the Reina 121 Cultural Centre -, our official sponsors: the Valencian craft beer Tyris and the soft drink Fritz Kola, and all the local collaborating venues of the neighbourhood that support us.

At the Reina 121 Cultural Centre, the festival has a first date on Thursday 6 February at 7pm, to inaugurate the exhibition ‘Una cançoneta i mo n’anem’. In it, 24 artists will present works inspired by the final moments of concerts in Valencia, when the audience, eager to prolong the magic of the moment, asks for one last song. The exhibition will remain open until the end of the month. The inaugural event will be enlivened by the artist DanDann, who will present a set of songs chosen from a raffle on our Instagram account (@muv_fest_valencia).

The seventh edition of MUV! will be inaugurated on Thursday 13 February at 8pm, in the foyer of the Teatre El Musical (TEM) in Cabanyal, with a free access party. The guest band will be Squib Cakes, a collective of ten musicians from different backgrounds who offer a tribute to the music of Tower Of Power, a show that we were able to enjoy at the last edition of the festival. The evening will also include the participation of artists belonging to the musical groups programmed for MUV!25.

Two days later, on Saturday 15 February, thanks to the collaboration with ACIPMAR (Association of Traders, Industrialists and Professionals of the Marítimo), a morning of music has been programmed in several shops in the neighbourhood with four performances with free access and limited capacity. Àgueda Segrelles and her ‘folk-intimist songs’, with influences from Pep Botifarra, Rita Payés, Silvio Rodríguez and Natalia Lafourcade. The flute is made flamenco by Karlos Nao, influenced by flautists such as Jorge Pardo and Juan Parrilla. The classical music trio with harp, flute and viola, Celestial String, will perform the most famous songs from their repertoire, while the DJ set by SOUMZ, who grew up in the Middle East, will offer his personal and eclectic sound inspired by a culture steeped in music and dance. The day will be rounded off by the creativity of two graffiti and mural artists: It’s Mancho and Spookernox will be decorating the shutters of the commercial premises and, at the Batisfera, a family workshop will be organised to make a personal musical tote bag.

The MUV!25 storyline proposes a journey through different sounds of the world that, moving, often for political reasons, mix, change and take on a new life. Music to enjoy, of course, but also to reflect on, one hundred per cent danceable in an experience that will transport us to different parts of the world.

For the 21st and 22nd of February, the festival proposes a musical route through the Poblados Marítimos, visiting six unique venues: the Teatro El Musical (TEM), La Batisfera, the Poblados Marítimos Music School, La Fábrica de Hielo, the StoneCastle Brewery and the Escorxador Cultural Centre. There will be stages where we can enjoy rhythms such as rock & roll, Arabic music, jazz, reggae, funk, soul, classical music, flamenco, mestizaje, and Balkan and Cuban rhythms.

The MUV!25 ship takes off on the evening of Friday 21 February with four proposals of varying depth and origin. On the stage of La Batisfera, at 8.30 p.m., the Federico Nathan Project will perform, accompanied by various guests. An innovative musical project, based on his own compositions that synthesise different musical traditions such as jazz, Latin American music, classical music and popular music, paying homage to different cultures of the world and to the victims of forced displacement. At the same time, in the TEM, from Andalusia, comes the duo Mundo Divino, a project made up of María del Tango from Granada and Carlos ‘el Calimbero’ from Madrid (one of the founders of the Madrid group El Bicho). The duo covers a wide range of styles, ranging from flamenco and Andalusian music to singer-songwriters’ songs or world music, Andalusian rock, folklore…

At the same time, at 8.30pm, La Fábrica de Hielo will host the project The Queen Bitches, a ‘conspiracy’ of talented Valencian musicians (led by Óscar Briz) who have been meeting occasionally on different stages since 2019, and who will celebrate the work of David Bowie.

Continuing on Friday night, at 8.30pm in the hall of the Escuela Musical de los Poblados Marítimos, in the heart of Cabanyal, Jamaican Jazz Lovers will present new and original songs. Skajazz and rocksteady are the musical basis of this group of seven Valencian musicians born in 2020, the fruit of friendship, love of Jamaican music and jazz. After the concert, the reggae rhythms of the DJ set by the producer, selector and singer JuaNaMaN will be the dance floor. A project focused on the sound system in which the Valencian singer, former frontman of the legendary Valencian band Arròs Caldós and frontman of Saï Saï, is both mixer and MC, navigating through the different styles of reggae music.

On the morning of Saturday 22 February, many shops and venues in the Cabanyal will open their doors to welcome those attending the festival’s varied proposals for all ages, including a music fanzine creation workshop. An illustration market with fifteen guest artists, enlivened by the classical music Trio Atenea, at the Escorxador Cultural Centre (from 11.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m.). At the same venue, Carlos ‘el Calimbero’ (reduced version of the concert by Mundo Divino the night before) will be giving a free calimba workshop (11.00 am).

The children’s public will have an appointment at La Fábrica de Hielo (11.30 am) with a workshop-concert of Cuban music, Cosas De Mi Cuba, in which they can get to know some of the genres of this style and the wealth of rhythms that make it up. The activities are designed for children from six years of age and for the general public.

From Jaén, Blanca La Almendrita, accompanied by the Valencian band Trupaka, will offer us a repertoire full of grit and duende, at 13.30h at the Poblados Marítimos School. An artist with flamenco roots who is an example of street elegance and vocal mastery with a very personal style capable of enhancing the magic of each song.

After a meal break in one of the many bars and restaurants in our neighbourhood, the MUV!25 will come to a close: six concerts of different tones and styles in a radius of less than a thousand metres, while the neighbourhood radio station, Radio Malva, will be busy in a live session in the Escorxador Cultural Centre, from 5 to 7 p.m., with interviews with the participating artists.

At La Batisfera there will be two proposals that will make us travel to faraway places: the first, at 6 p.m., will be Andrés Belmonte, who will take the opportunity to present, with an exceptional quartet, his second album, Gharbí (غربي), dedicated to the fusion of Arab and Valencian music. The second, at 8.30pm, in the south, will be the Cuban project of Modo Libre. Their first EP, Trae la suerte, which will be premiered during the MUV!, is a compilation of habaneras and homologues, arranged and brought up to date. The work describes what it meant to migrate and always carry with us what we call ‘home’.

The North American-influenced rockers will be playing at the StoneCastle Brewery, next to the new Grau market. There, Los Trileros will open the stage, and at 6 p.m. they will take us on a journey through the American music of the 50s and 60s, playing with the melodies and style of the instrumental bands of the time. At 8.30 p.m., the powerful international duo Helen Helen, rocky-country-punky from the United States and Valencia, with Honor on vocals and guitar and Monty on the bataka, a super honky tonk duo!

At 7 p.m. at the Poblados Marítimos Music School, the live performance of Trocamba Matanusca, a group of twelve musicians, a kaleidoscope of sound where Balkan fanfares, folk, some touches of swing or jazz, with the explosiveness of klezmer and a touch of electronica come together. With numerous concerts on streets and stages all over the world, they have taken part in folk and fusion music festivals, and have toured internationally in Portugal, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Finland, Italy and Switzerland.

The final touch to the 2025 edition of the MUV! will be provided by Ay Trick at 22.00, an international soul, funk and hip-hop band with musicians from the United States, France, Hungary and Spain. Three of its members are graduates of the Berklee College of Music and have performed at prestigious festivals such as Formentera Jazz and Palo Alto Market. They will offer a concert accompanied by two dancers who will not leave any of the souls present indifferent.

Remember to reserve the last weekend of February in your calendars and get your dancing skills up to date, you’re going to need them!

Programme and ticket sales: www.muvfest.com

Report by ’24/7 Valencia’ team

Article  copyright ’24/7 Valencia’