The  Escuela del Espectador [Audience School] starts its 6th year with thirty students aged 18 to 64. The Island Director for Culture and Education, José Luis Rivero, welcomed the new group at the Auditorio de Tenerife and said that “there are no levels or assessments, all the opinions are valid”. Until July, the learners will take part in weekly two-hour sessions in which they will gain a deeper knowledge of music, dance and opera; they will also have master classes by artists and cultural experts and will attend the Auditorio de Tenerife shows so that they can use the analytic techniques they have learnt.

José Luis Rivero highlighted that “the process of learning about artistic languages at the Escuela is collective and horizontal, “we’re not looking for arty-farty people with learnedly opinions on a show, but people who can enjoy it from a natural point of view here and elsewhere in the world”.

The teacher at Escuela del Espectador, Iván Morales, explained to the students that in these sessions “your learning will help you to make the most of the shows and we’ll encourage you to try new disciplines you may not have dared to”. “We want them to be cultural ambassadors”, the expert said.

The first sessions will deal with introductory knowledge on each of the genres in Auditorio de Tenerife’s programme. They will also have specific talks on each show including free admission to see them followed by an analysis where discussion, agreement and disagreement and the encounter with the other are encouraged.

138 people applied to take part this year and 31 were selected taking into account certain features like municipality, age, gender, and professional profile. The idea of the programme, which is a public call and has no enrolment fee, is to have the widest possible range of Tenerife people: men and women, young and old, workers, students, pensioners, etc. The Escuela del Espectador is part of the Learning and Community Area of Auditorio de Tenerife, with the contribution of Fundación Cepsa and Obra Social “la Caixa”.