Joan Manuel Serrat: “I do not feel champion of any political cause” | EUROtoday

Joan Manuel Serrat He couldn't cover his smile, simply six hours in the past they’d known as him from the Princess of Asturias Foundation to ask him if he had any dedication on October twenty eighth. “This morning I had no idea he would be here, I had other plans…” he admitted. boy from Poblesec when he arrived on the SGAE headquarters in Barcelona to provide a press convention after studying that he can be the subsequent Princess of Asturias Award for the Artsa 12 months after Meryl Streep.

“I feel extraordinary satisfaction, joy and gratitude. Also surprise, why not say it… As a final point of my artistic career it seems to be a really good culmination. I hope to have time to be able to enjoy it with serenity and distance,” confessed Serrat, who retired from the stage on the eve of Christmas Eve 2022, with an emotional live performance on the Palau Sant Jordi earlier than 15,100 folks. He did so after a protracted tour of eight months, with 74 live shows that took him to tour half of America and the complete Spanish geography. But Serrat doesn’t depart utterly: his songs are already a heritage of in style reminiscence. Something that the Princess of Asturias acknowledges. most outstanding figures of recent music. His songs are a part of the emotional reminiscence of a number of generations in Spain and Latin America,” highlights the jury's ruling. A jury of which Serrat himself was a part in 1987, when Eduardo Chillida was awarded.

In times of strong polarization and political tension, the jury also vindicates the figure of “harmony and understanding” that the singer-songwriter represents, a great “defender of dialogue”. “In Serrat's work, with deep Mediterranean roots, the artwork of poetry and music is mixed on the service of tolerance, shared values, the richness of the variety of languages ​​and cultures, in addition to a obligatory need for freedom” , reads the jury minutes.

Dictatorship and Transition through, Serrat has not hesitated to speak out (and act) in the face of political injustices, social conflicts and even linguistic disputes. “I don’t really feel like an ordinary bearer for any political trigger.. I really feel complicit, accompaniment and a part of any trigger during which I could have been concerned. But I don't have a listing of them.” And he adds: “I really feel fairly comfy with what I’ve performed and been on this life.”

However, from the most extremist sectors of Catalonia there have already been some suspicions in networks that highlight the musician for accepting an award that represents the monarchy. “Well, allow them to change the identify,” Serrat shrugged.

“How can I refuse an award for which I actually was a choose? “There will always be suspicions.” Something to which he’s accustomed: it isn’t simple to be within the center. Serrat has all the time defended the best measure, the reasonable place, one thing that may be seen in his songbook, that of a bilingual Barcelonan born on a avenue with the identify of poet.”Catalan and Spanish are the two languages ​​in which I have expressed myself. Always with security and certainty, having both as a way of understanding each other, as a way of existing. They coexist in me quite naturally, without the need to use any dictionary to go from one to the other,” he says.

Now retired, the musician acknowledges that he leads a really mundane day-to-day life, “like that of any citizen”: This morning the driving license was renewed, he went to the notary and ate together with his spouse, his daughter, his son-in-law and his granddaughter. In the afternoon she needed to attend to the press as a result of at 80 years outdated she enters the pantheon of the Princess Asturias Awards, which acknowledge excellence in essentially the most various fields. Throughout his life, Serrat has sung the nice poets of yesterday and right this moment. Until he himself has turn into the poet of the complete nation together with his easy and tender phrases. Before leaving, he stated goodbye: “Be very happy, as much as I am today.”