The music of composer Alfredo Aracil, recently awarded the National Music Prize (2015), performed on piano by the National Music Prize (2013), Juan Carlos Garvayo, and the illustrations and texts of the National Design Prize (1989), Alberto Corazón, come together in an innovative visual show with multimedia production by Simón Escudero. Produced by the Museum, in collaboration with the Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical (CNDM) and Metacción, 'Siempre/Todavía. Ópera sin voces' premiered at the Museum's theater.

The origin of this creation is found in the book "Damascus Suite, we are memory" (Ahora Ediciones de Bibliofilia, 2004), published after a transcendental stay of the Madrid-born designer in the Syrian capital, on the occasion of a retrospective exhibition that the National Museum of Damascus dedicated to the painting and sculpture of Alberto Corazón himself. A customs problem delayed the assembly for several days; time that Corazón spent getting to know Damascus in depth, touring the museum reviewing each piece and ruin of its then rich collection, visiting Aleppo, its museums and, in short, immersing himself in the roots of Syrian culture. He was able to see then that in Damascus the history of all civilizations converges and is a multicultural meeting place. And he made a travelogue, with illustrations and texts that inspired him during his stay there.

The creation of 'Siempre/Todavía. Ópera sin voces' is produced thanks to the music that Aracil composed to view the illustrations and texts of Corazón. This first composition convinced the designer and even prompted him to develop more drawings specifically for the work the composer wanted to create. The 27 musical pieces of the National Music Prize 2015 intertwine various styles and eras such as Baroque, Romanticism and the avant-garde of the 20th and 21st century, and will be performed live by pianist Juan Carlos Garvayo. The more than 500 drawings and notes by Alberto Corazón constitute a memory of the cultural richness of Syria, but without wanting to focus it geographically on the Middle Eastern country, but rather to universalize it in order to make it more lasting.

This innovative artistic creation provokes a dialogue between animated graphics and texts projected on a large screen, with music composed ad hoc for solo piano. The show is in line with the philosophy of bringing together all the artistic disciplines present in the Museum, in this case, the visual arts and music.

The experiences of a now undefined character bring us closer to the impression that time is not necessarily that current that drags everything with no possibility of turning back, but sometimes a place where past, present and future coexist: a time-memory, culture, that unites instead of distancing.

"The work takes us beyond Damascus or Aleppo and the cultures that developed in the region, but it was there where it began to be born and we cannot stop thinking today that the war, which devastates everything, also tries to take away its cultural heritage and its museums. We don't know what remains today, what will remain, of all that and we can't stop asking ourselves that question... and we discovered that part of the answer was, from the first sketches, implicit in this piece: we are part of that memory; at least all of us remain," the creators explain.

This is the Museum's first collaboration with the Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical (CNDM), a unit of the Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música (INAEM) and a benchmark institution in Spain. Both institutions share the mission of promoting and disseminating art in society.