The singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat received the National Culture Award this Friday in an event at the College of Architects of Catalonia, together with the clown Alba Sarraute, the painter Joan-Pere Viladecans, the translator Dolors Udina and the Eufonic festival .
“I have been writing songs for more than 50 years, and I do it because, by writing and singing them, I bring out feelings and sensations that boil inside me (…). Writing songs is transforming dreams into small realities, essential to understand my time, what happens, what I want. Songs sometimes squeeze us, hit us, hurt us and kill us, but without songs we would not know how to live”, said the Noi del Poble Sec after receiving the award from the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, and the singer-songwriter SÃlvia Pérez Cruz.
The National Council for Culture and the Arts (CoNCA) has thus distinguished the figure of the Barcelona singer-songwriter a few months after retiring from the stage, “for having become one of the most outstanding figures of modern song in Catalan and in Castilian with his music, which drinks from diverse genres such as French song, Catalan folklore, Andalusian copla, Argentine tango and bolero. For having known how to reach the most diverse audiences, since his initial link with the Nova Cançó movement, with his own lyrics and those of recognized poets, which have made him a singer of great popular, national and international projection. The award thus adds to the long list of recognitions he has received throughout his career around the world, from the Barcelona Gold Medal or the Cross of Civil Merit from the Spanish Government to being named a Knight of the Legion of Honor of France, in addition to distinctions such as the Honorary Grammy Award or various honorary doctorates, the last of which, from the University of Barcelona, ​​he received last March.
During the brief event, presented by the journalist Neus Molina and with the musical accompaniment of the pianist Ignasi Terraza, the first to receive the award was Alba Sarraute (Argentona, 1982), who did it with her father, the double bassist Jorge Sarraute , on the stage. Trained as a circus artist (clown, actress, saxophonist, acrobat and also a show director), the artist “incorporates visual narrative as a common thread and circus techniques as tools of expression”, with great international recognition. Sarraute has exclaimed her surprise for the award, because “the circus, women and motherhood need this visibility”, while she has asked for support for the “contemporary room circus, because the rooms are empty. We need public, economic and political supportâ€.
About the painter Joan-Pere Viladecans (Barcelona, ​​1948) it has been highlighted that “starting from post-war Catalan informalism and the avant-garde, he reaches his own language for his works” with which he “transmits the human dimension of beings with all the intensity of the existential lookâ€. A few weeks ago it was announced that the artist will also receive the Creu de Sant Jordi, awarded by the Government of the Generalitat at an event scheduled for July. Viladecans, who received the award accompanied by the president of the MNAC, Joan Oliveras, wanted to recall that “a country without culture has no self-esteem or the possibility of facing the world”, because “the country is what its art, music, architecture, theater or literature, like a beacon of intense clarityâ€.
The translator Dolors Udina (Barcelona, ​​1953), translator mainly from English of authors such as Alice Munro, J.M. Coetzee, Toni Morrison or Ali Smith, has been awarded, in addition to her excellence as a translator, for “her long career in teaching and her contribution to the training of a generation of translators”. Udina celebrated the award as a member “of a sector that tends to live in the shadows and has only recently come to light”, and has predicted a “golden age of translation”, while denouncing the precarious conditions in the presence of the poet and translator –and his partner– Antoni Clapés.
The Eufònic festival, which combines innovation and tradition in Terres de l’Ebre, with proposals based on the sound, visual and digital-performative arts, has also received the National Award, for a program “advanced trends†that “links with the geographical environment and the patrimonial richness of the Terres de l’Ebre as a setting and place of gestationâ€. The director, Vicent Fibla, along with the historian and art critic Conxita Oliver, received the award. Fibla has thanked his team and has wished “long life to this creative periphery”.
At the award ceremony, in addition to the jury (the CoNCA plenary, formed by Vinyet Panyella as president, Margarida Troguet, Jordi Font, Tania Adam, Jaume Ayats, Salvador Casals and Núria Iceta) members of the Government and world representatives also attended of culture, among others the presidents of PEN Català , Laura Huerga; from the Catalan Language Writers Association, Sebastià Portell; from the Association of Professional Actors and Directors of Catalonia, Àlex Casanovas, and from Òmnium Cultural, Xavier Antich, the musician and writer Gerard Quintana or the poet and former president of CoNCA Carles Duarte, as well as the former presidents of the Generalitat Artur Mas and José Montilla
Catalan version, here
