SOINU SINFONIKOA

Published by DEIA, August 18, 2011



It’s the middle of the night, Tuesday August 16. I get up and it’s 3 in the morning. I turn the TV on and a gentleman is reading the Tarot cards. A great many of people would wish to know which is going to be their future, according to them, to be able to take the correct decisions in their life. Is the future written out? What a fantastic mystery! Just image when I started to "play" with that old trikitixa, with one or two broken-down buttons, if somebody would have been able to tell me the essential point that it would be for me in my life. Seated in the living room, I look back on my long and fascinating career that I have taken to stub with this bellows of hell behind my back and I awake up from that journey with the vertigo of facing in a few hours a new project: Recording next to the Symphony Orchestra of Basque Country, directed by Enrique Ugarte, some of the most important themes of my career. Of course the idea impassions me and at the same time it is a hoped-for project years ago. It is not easy to try to join two worlds like the one of classical music with the folk music or more traditional. Few times they interweave. We already work side by side previously in a concert officiated at the Kursaal of Donostia, but now we are going to ruffle up the curl and to make together, in a different and more innovative way, the themes selected for such project, side by side, that will be from those beginning songs that accompany me from the very start of my music career till the last new album Ultramarinos & Coloniales. Definitively, we want to achieve a high-quality music and energy album filled with illusion, effort and lots of talent. Who would have said year’s ago that a trikitixa would be seen accompanied by the whole symphony orchestra? I´m so excited thinking about that, aside from being new recording album, we are also creating new roads to explore, as much in classical music as in traditional one, uncovering new frontiers to an instrument like the trikitixa. I hope that between all of us we will be able to materialize all the unique and special moments that we are going to live thanks to the music. Now if the future of today was written or not in the present of yesterday, it’s the least important. Break a leg!!!!

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BAOBAB

Published By DEIA, August 11, 2011


It's sure that there was a time in the awakening of man in which no one felt out of place in nature. Today, one of the biggest problems of the human being is feeling that he does not belong anywhere, neither to a family, nor to a place and not even to nature. And, curiously, I suppose that as in other rules of life, instead of searching to return to that link of union with what we are, we have tried to solve the problem by making the surroundings adapting to us, losing totally the north of the things.

How have I come to this conclusion? After reading an article of a tree that lives almost exclusively south of the Sahara desert and that has lived 3,000 years, reaching its truck to measure more than 30 meters of diameter.

It is the Adansonia Digitata or African Baobab. The odd thing of this tree is that it reaches those giant-sized thicknesses having grace at not having a high height. Living where this arboreal species lives it has specialized in the storage of enormous quantities of water inside, converting itself into something like an enormous barrel, capable of containing up to 120,000 liters of the liquid element. This tree is a true treasure because we achieve monkey's bread; a fruit with great quantity of vitamin C, of the bark; a fiber with which strings and baskets are manufactured, from his boiled leaves food, while from his wet pollen glue is obtained.

Because of its strange appearance, the baobab has been creditor of many African legends among them one is that everyone who drinks the water in which its seeds have gotten wet will be protected against the attack of the crocodiles or that the one, who extracts a flower from the tree, will die devoured by a lion. Besides their hollow trunks have served as jail, house and even like the one of Limpopo ( South Africa ) as a bar, being able to hold in its interior 40 people.

We try to subdue the surroundings to our needs, without realizing that the path is in finding what we are and in that way we’ll be able to enjoy all the baobab of our existence has to offers us.

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ARTZAI JAUSIAK

Published by DEIA, Agosto 4, 2011



Traveling around the world, in addition to pleasurable, is one of the most enriching activities that one can do. Meeting people, places, habits and cultures entails an almost constant discovery of different worlds.

Some weeks ago I talked about Rogelio Botanz, a Basque that settled in the Canary Islands and that is a true expert in the Siblo gomero (a canary island whistling language). In one of those trips that I visited the islands, Rogelio invited me to accompany him in a documentary recording about the "Salto del Pastor” (Jump of the Shepherd). It is called the Salto del Pastor or, more colloquially, the Brinco (Jump Over), they move around the mountains with the help of a stick that is around 2 to 4 meters long, ending with a metallic tip. It is a traditional practice that the shepherds of the Canary Islands have used to move through those so abrupt payments. It seems incredible to observe how jumpers run through incredible slopes, accomplishing amazing leaps, thanks to the use of the pole that, nailed firmly to the ground and used like a rod for them to slide down arriving to the ground, allows to carrying out such exploits.

Although it is not well know the origin of the Jump of the Shepherd, one knows that already the guanaches (refers to the aboriginal inhabitants of the island) used this technique in their displacements. Talking to Rogelio he commented me that the most spectacular leaps, according to the elders, took place, not in the steep mountains and cliffs, but the shepherds, far from using it only for work, used this technique to date. They would go up to the church’s bell tower, they waited until the girl they were interested pass by, they would toss a coin to the ground and immediately afterwards they let themselves fall, nailing down the lance tightly where they had thrown the coin and sliding their body beside the pole smoothly down to the ground. Skillful action, target and courage, a full demonstration of manliness to call the lady's attention.

Once again, the proof of the human being’s need to compete to evolve. We all react giving our maximum when we spark competitiveness off, even when one is the more daring one of all, the one of ourselves.

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ERAIKUNTZAK

Published by DEIA, July 28, 2011



Anyone that knows me knows that in my house the subject of the construction has always had a preponderant paper in our lives. Furthermore, from childhood I have been amazed by the big constructions, bridges and, of course, the works of ancient civilizations: The Egyptian and American pyramids, the big castles, the Great Wall of China…

And talking about China, I have just read an amazing article, the metallurgic Chinese company Minmetals carries out a project that seems to be as if it just came out of a fantasy movie. It’s about constructing in Guangdong, a province south of China, a perfect copy of Hallstatt, an Austrian town of almost 1,000 inhabitants. They are copying it house by house, street by street and even they have even taken into account the lake that bathes the aforementioned Austrian town and that, of course, will count on his counterpart in Guangdong. The metallurgic company curiously advertises this project as a "sophisticated residential area based on the European-style". The Hallstatt's inhabitants, since 1999 holds the World Heritage Site for Cultural Heritage, are perplexed and some are very upset with only the fact of copying exactly their town. But there are others who think this will be a great tourist claim for this locality of the Austrian Alps.

Everything in this life is relative. The same ones that copy an entire town are able to carry out a pharaonic work like the longest bridge over the sea in the world. I have visited in several occasions Chinese cities and the most characteristic is the sensation of enjoying so many different contrasts in every moment. The country that has developed to the bitter end the art of plagiarism is at the same time leader in far-reaching projects and it is that, as well said the quote "United we stand" and in the case of the Chinese society this affirmation acquires a principal importance. Well taken it is proven that the one that copies also can create. As in other fields... better not getting carried away by appearances.

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ARRIDURAK

Published by DEIA, July 21,2011



Taking a walk by the Biscayan coast and chatting with several friends about how easy or how difficult that it is the co-penetration of two txalapartaris (the persons w ho play the txalaparta) have to work out in order so their combination keeps on rising the magical rhythms of the txalaparta (an ancestral xylophone played by horizontal planks hit with vertical sticks) one of them sees another but not less fascinating combination. Above us 6 seagulls flying in circles, as in taking height, and over them a bird shaped like anchor that was carrying shorter and energetic circles.

"He’s a peregrine falcon", they tell me, and I, a bit incredulous, keep on thinking what it could be similar to, but a falcon? All of a sudden he closes his wings, turns around and, in a beating of wings, he’s already grating on the back of one seagull that, as he can, turns around and shows his threatening peak, in front of the falcon which changes his direction and disappears.

Everything was in moments of energy and an unusual emotion. I could not get out of my amazement. But what most called my attention is that, while we shouted and we were indicating the event, the people that were walking around were not showing neither the least’s interest. And I remembered the words of an Austrian friend that I met at a concert in Glasgow, Peter, that he said to me that we were a fortunate country for the whole wealth of the fauna and scenic that we have in the peninsula and, in that occasion, he explained to me about the cologne of vultures at the mountain Candina, in the easternmost extreme of Cantabria. In this 476-meter peak settles down one atypical vulture hunter with views toward the sea: the northernmost of Spain, and the only in Europe with these characteristics. Some call these vultures, "marine vultures" for the queerness that it seems to observe these birds in the coast.

So many times unique elements lose their attraction and mystery for the human being to become part of what's everyday activity. How it's possible what is to be "normal" loses interest in exceptional things? I do believe that we should put more emphasis in bestowing their true value upon each thing.

We have so many fascinating things that are around us, learning how to enjoy them, even though they are a part of what's habitual, is an obligation. Or, are other people always going to have to teach us?


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IDARETA

Published by DEIA, July 14, 2011



Human tides, liters and liters of various drinks, music and, how not, the mythical, famous bull running, that gives personality to such a unique city as Iruñea. St. Fermín is a worldwide event in which thousands of tourists come to live different experiences, sometimes, even to the limit. But while I see the images of a day’s bull running on TV I remember a lot of friends that live around there, one of them Fran Idareta, an accordionist whom I have shared stage in several occasions with, and that has been protagonist of an excellent news that exemplifies his great personal personality. Fran has achieved his doctorate in Social Work, which is not all.

His thesis concludes with fascinating discoveries that at the same time are so logical as when in treating a patient "we should talk about a person by their name, with a past and a specific life, having a subjective vision of their sufferings". And it is that, in words of Fran Idareta, “we should not hide ourselves behind the diagnostic data’s, but instead looking into the person’s face, touchable and definite, that who suffers. We do not only have to know, we also have to feel". The data, knowledge, theories are absolutely necessary but, as very well Idareta points out, all of that is not much to us if we do not empathize with the patient.

They have always taught us that the human being is almost totality formed of water but I would go a bit a further, if water is physically our base element, then I would bet that in the same measure that our feelings are the essential motor of the immaterial human essence and that way it is practically impossible to be able to tackle the cure of a disease if we do not take into account the other “I" of the individual, where we find the encouragement, the illusion and the hope in oneself.

Fran Idareta has opened up a different road that I hope others will continue, but somehow he has already gone through a similar territory when he discovers that with his accordion and his art he surpassed emotions and the illusions of those who listen to him, because music also gives us health and feeds our human soul.

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AUKERAK

Published by DEIA, July 7, 2011



This week’s column had a theme that we are not going to talk about, when I already had finished the article and just about to email it I read an article in DEIA that captivated me and at the same time it aroused a lot of queasiness in me.

A driving school of Basauri is teaching to drive the first person in Europe that uses his legs as his arms. For me it is another example of a human overcoming his adversities, but at the same time, the story has much more to say.

David Rivas, is the name of the student, is from Madrid and his problem is that he was born armless. He works coordinating a team of 11 people inside the Integralia Foundation that makes the procedures of appointments at the La Paz Hospital. Ok, this far all is normal. What got my interested was that someone from Madrid had to ask for a month off to be able to come to Euskadi (Basque Country) to face this challenge in trying to earn his driving license with a car that is adapted to his handicap. There are many driving schools with cars adapted to the most common handicaps but nobody wanted to accept the challenge to make it possible, opportunity for David to earn his license permit? They say that David handles the computer perfectly with his feet, in which his ability he does have.

It is sad that people with so obvious difficulties many times the surroundings, either social level, economic or of another nature, raise even more obstacles, making it even more difficult than it is already.

But this news also offers us another understanding, the pride to know that although in many occasions we are criticized for our political and ideological reasons and sometimes even for our culture, the truth of the matter is that there are great many avant-garde people like the driving school Irrintzi that are daring to take the adventure, as this one, showing that the Basques are neither better nor worse then others, but we are, and allow me the expression... AWESOME!




Good luck David and ….. burn rubber.

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