It is traditionally on the feast of St Ferdinand, the chapel's patron saint, that the season's musical agenda is brought to a close. This year, the concert-mass in honour of St Ferdinand was given by the harpist of the Royal Symphonic Orchestra of Seville, Daniela Iolkicheva, and the Foundation's organist, Father Ayarra. The original duo performed a series of works from different European schools, which was greatly appreciated by the audience and broadcast, as are all the masters concerts, on the Spanish National Radio classical music station.
The 11th anniversary of the inauguration of the Hospital de los Venerables as the Focus-Abengoa Foundation's headquarters building was commemorated on 5 November with a concert given by Emmanuel Hocde, winner of the Grand Prix d'Interprétation at the Chartres International Organ Competition. He performed works by Grigny, Frescobaldi, Bach, Brahms and Alain, captivating the audience with his superb technical and musical skills.
Also in November, we had the chance to hear a young organist from Mexico, José Francisco Álvarez, who came from Germany to offer us an interesting and varied organ programme as part of the series entitled Chorale, hymn and verse: musical forms in the liturgy, the common theme of the recitals by new talents for the 2002-2003 season. The young organist did justice to the highly interesting programme, giving a tight, confident performance.
The year 2002 was brought to a close with a recital by another young performer, Juan de la Rubia Romero, a promising organist from Valencia, who performed well-crafted and complicated works on the theme of these recitals by Buxtehude, Brahms and Listz, which put the exceptional skills and training of the young musician to the test.

We have been successful in fulfilling
the objectives of our musical agenda, which have been extended beyond bringing an organ music repertoire of different schools and ages to Sevillian music lovers, to include efforts to familiarise school children with the organ through educational recitals held monthly in the chapel. This highly rewarding and worthwhile work will undoubtedly bear fruit in the future.