LLARIEGU

Published by DEIA, May 12, 2011




Just a few days ago I visited the city of Gijon because I collaborated in recorded a CD - DVD on behalf of the Band of Gaitas of Llariegu. I know that it sounds a little bit as a topic but every time that I visit Cantabria, Asturias or Galicia, for a concert or to collaborate with musicians of the area, I feel very special things because of the different encounters and at the same time being unique. And I say that after traveling through so many countries in which I feel very comfortable, yet there is something in these communities and in their people that fills me with energy and makes me feel just as in home.

In this occasion I was going to spend a few days collaborating with the band of bagpipes due to the complexity of the project: Preparation, rehearsals, concert, etc. Now what really caught my interest are the passion and the desire that each and every members of the band had in every moment. The Gaitas's Band of Llariegu is an amateur band, of enthusiastic people having much talent that has nothing to envy any professional group since by not living by the music doesn’t sincerely make a difference at the time of effort and to embroider a project as we were doing.

Our first encounter was in their site of rehearsal, in Sariegu, where for the first time I felt the true potential of the group with the percussions and the bagpipes clobbering to the maximum. What a sound! How much strength! It is incredible to feel yourself wrapped up with so much energy and to be able to contribute with your own that, at the same time, multiplies by moment.

The concert was in La Laboral of Gijon, ancient university recycled now in a building for several activities and with a very special charm. A curious and shocking place all at the same time. The repertoire was of the most interesting and in my case I played several themes of the Breton culturehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif while we interpreted some parades it reminded harmoniously to me our arin-arin.

The first impression, so many times, is the one that counts, although, at times, we make a great effort in dimming our feeling with our minds.

I drew a smile the first day that I listened to them and I thought: “It is clear that the musical travels by air ...” Let's not give it a second thought.

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BIDEAK

Published by DEIA, April 28, 2011



EUNANTE, situated in Navarre, is a precious jewel consider of the Knights of Templars in the route to the Sepulture of St. James.

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It seems so curious that so many times the path in which we have already traveled from in which today surround us has come to us along time ago. A bill of exchange of those that we use to carry payments and cashing payments has a close connection, to my surprise with the Middle Ages and with a very famous chivalric order.

In the year 1119, nine of French Knights carried out vows of poverty, obedience and chastity. They were lodged in the stables of King Balduino II of Jerusalem that he constructed over the ruins of the Temple of Solomon. They were The Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon, otherwise called Templars, half monk, half soldier. Their mission was preserving the many pilgrims of the holy places. And that is where this order became a type of bank of pilgrims that traveled to meet with the Holy Sepulcher. They needed to take a lot of money and an enormous infrastructure if they wanted to carry out their journey the pilgrims, in which is why The Templers signed for them a series of bills for which they could exchange for lodge, food etc. in each Templar commission of the road. In return the Templars calculated by means of the different documents the costs and they charged them with the had proven to have from their departure staying with all of the money, thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife lands and houses if the pilgrim was perishing in the company. That way, in 2 centuries of existence the Templars treasured such an incredible wealth that the same king of France and the Pope of the epoch, finished with their Order’s adventure due to conflicting interests. The Knights, war-like monks and swords flow in a formulate banking system that even today we continue working with, demonstrating the multiple existing springs in the human essence.

What a strange existing surprise the relationship between the bill of exchange and The Knights of Templar and at the same time how fascinating to think all what’s is still to know and to discover.
C’est the vie!

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ILUSIONAK

Published by DEIA, April 21, 2011





It is very easy to say that we should have illusion when everything is going all right, when our vital expectations are intact. What's difficult is keeping the same attitude when something goes the wrong way, a disease or an event can tarnish all that until then we believed and became the illusion and the passion into memories of a dream we wanted.
Jason Becker is a born guitar player in United States, July of 1969. From a very young boy he began to play the guitar by ear, in a self-educated way, and soon he was interpreting Dylan's, Clapton’s, Hendrix’s songs etc so that, thanks to his unorthodox way of evolving, went beyond the influences of his teachers and managed to develop an own style becoming one of the best guitar players of all times. At the age of 20 Jason was diagnosed with the disease of Lou Gehrig, a disease that left him at wheelchair.
But this has not made him quit and now, instead of interpreting, he composes music and continues to be working and fighting to break new frontiers, becoming another example of the amazing capacity of the human being to surpass obstacles, transforming a feeling of survival into something almost miraculous and fascinating. The true effort is finding a way to be able to grab on hope, even when that that we were excited about had disappeared forever. Normally it is necessary to knock down the barriers that we all have internally, the ones that almost always are nourished by the suffering and the fear of loss and to failure. Why people with so hard lives a priori achieve so many goals and dreams while others not? The fear to lose what we have tortures us, belittle us and makes us not be all that we can be. It is complicated that that one that believes that has nothing to lose is afraid of it and perhaps... Won't that be its true secret and at the same time paradoxically his true fortune? Let's brush fear aside and let's enjoy of what life offers us, it is an obligation.
So... Gentlemen do game !

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HEGALDIAK

Published by DEIA, April 14, 2011





WE ARE waiting in the runway. You look through the window and, sincerely, your mouth starts to dry. The turbine of the motors accelerates, the brake to the maximum potency and almost all the possible sensations all crowded up just before the beginning of our journey.

The sound of the airplane’s motors is something that always made my hair stands on end by the force and potency that is guessed. All of a sudden, perhaps pushed by the circumstances, the commander steps on the gas and you feel that you sink more and more in the seat, experimenting physically the converging of a lot of forces on our bodies. And at the same as centuries ago the sailors of those wooden ships let loose the moorings and began a long and unpredictable journey, we fly in the sky and we internally emulate dashing to the unknown in an always hostile means for the human being, as it is air.

This is often the succession of feelings that often I experience upon the take-off traveling by air and that is that, as much as I try, I’m not accustom at all to this about flying. Neither can I say that I should have an exacerbated fear but it is true that I keep found feelings inside of me. Definitely I should be talking about respect and that many times comes to life because neither it is acquainted nor do we dominate the process that entails this act.

It is surprising to see how our mind plays dirty tricks. Flying by air does not physically vary in nothing to when we ride a car or travel by train, but the mind tells us that we are flying and that we do not touch firm ground.

And that becomes respect, and maybe even fear, that in which we do not know how to assume ends up restricting us.

While I pick up my suitcases and I walk to the car sometimes I see how again another airplane takes off and I think about everybody that travels in that craft, in all that they leave behind and what they take accompanied of that powerful and forceful sound track that is the adventure of life.

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ZUZENEAN

Published by DEIA, April 7, 2011



After one of my concerts a person came up to me and told me how much he was impressed with the spectacle. Everything got his attention, not only because he like the event but more for the difference that it seemed for him as to when he see it on television.

Television and the computer screen have become our windows to the world, in addition to be a source of infinity events we can have, news or spectacles. Today, and thanks to the more present technology, we have an absolutely giant-sized access to everything a series of information and concepts through the different screens that populate our lives, that's to say, we attend all in a virtual way and amazingly we are getting used to it so that when we attend a live spectacle, everything produces a surprise on us even admiration because we are not accustomed to get things done in reality. And this more and more general current invades us completely; leading us even to have a valueless vision of what it is the real life.

Live concerts have a special and magical energy. In my work, the recordings acquire tones, they harvest many different textures but they lack of strength and the freshness of the here and now in front of the public. Certainly, we will not be able to express there with the same quality as in a recording, but we substitute it for that one-of-a-kind vitality and energy that makes everything be much more intense.

Somehow, our lives are getting to be a continuous going back and forth of more and more decaffeinated doings, as if we lived everything in third gear person, so when we experience something intense and in for real, we are shocked and surpasses us. We have to break that tendency and letting oneself be taken away for what really presses our chest.... It’s a challenge and to me, challenges, is what I like.


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EDADEAK

Published by DEIA, March 31, 2011




I have three trikis (diatonic accordion) on the table while I talk about the different variants at interpreting the trikitixa. I try to make them see the different rhythms, sounds and styles that have developed through our history in connection with what we call the diatonic accordion. While my chat flows between songs and laughter, I become aware of something amazing. The young that assisted the master class scrutinize with their gaze, listen with much attention, discovering for themselves the maximum of knowledge to demonstrate of what they are capable, dissimulating sometimes a timidness that restricts their lofty potential of understanding new ideas and concepts. But the people of more age don’t act in that manner and in view of the fact that their capacity of adaptation to the newness is minor, they wager more to share and to be guided from others.

We overvalue the youth and their capacities, forgetting about how important as to know as in knowledge is having something to say. They have always advised us to begin as soon as possible to learn how to play an instrument, to paint, to write... But of what does knowing to the perfection of color and textures combinations or concatenating an ocean of chords to the perfection suit someone's purposes if one has nothing to express with it? The youth is a gift, but the experience is a degree.

I have met many trikitilaris that began very late and perhaps technically had big gaps yet they are purveyed with abundance, because they knew how to transpose in the bellows their experiences of life and catches the public with magic of what one does not learn, of what turns out well after living and assuming the flamboyance without fear, getting carried away for, simply, being all that they can be.

To express what we have inside should be obligatory and admiring the people shaped by the passage of time also. They lose fear and they win courage, they are near-perfect... Let’s see if they teach us (and we let ourselves be taught) how to. Each one in their own way.


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HITZ BIZIAK

Published by DEIA, March 24, 2011




NOVELS, essays and, of course, poetry are the roads that writers walks through when they want to express themselves by means of the words. They, in addition to be the fundamental part of communication, are the basic piece in many of the artistic representations of the human being which is capable of. And poetry is, in my opinion, the one of more extraordinary expression for the intensity that has to expose the deepest feelings in few words.

Hurtado de Amezaga, the estuary, Abando's station, el Casco Viejo (Downtown), the New Plaza and the Café Boulevard were the selected places to pay tribute to the illustrious native of Bilbao, Blas of Otero. Sabina de la Cruz (the poet's widow), José Ángel Iribar, José Fernández de la Sota, Gurutze Beitia and I, participated in a literary route to celebrate the anniversary of the poet’s birth , walking through the city and reciting his poems in an interesting proposal, not only to bring closer the culture to the streets but also to carry it out with people from different aspects of life that, also, showed the full willingness for such purpose.

Blas of Otero, poet (1916-1979), was born in Bilbao and moved to Madrid during his childhood for economical reasons. There he began to study law, returning to Bilbao for circumstances that marked his introspective character which will be seen reflected in his work. He seized to religion, friendship and the art to live a life that was nothing easy and it is in the poem where, without a doubt, he found a true understanding place to his needs and his innermost desires. His work carried a constant evolution, going through what's mystic, the existential and, finally, a most social stage, reflecting the crisis and the encounters that had took place during his life.

Words are the feeling's weapon and we hold on to them when we want to express the innermost of ourselves. As Otero wrote: “If I have lost my life, time, everything... the only thing left I have is the word". And to us... also.


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