The singer-songwriters Joan Manuel Serrat and Maria del Mar Bonet are also doctors. And they have been since this noon when they were invested at the University of Barcelona in a solemn act in its auditorium.
Joan Guàrdia, rector of the UB, served as master of ceremonies and used one of Serrat’s most emblematic songs to synthesize the background and the form of an exciting ceremony: “Today is a great day!”
And I wasn’t exaggerating one iota, because what was experienced for an hour and a half yesterday in the historic space of Plaza Universitat is something to remember. One of the proofs of this was already indicated by a room overflowing with the presence of numerous figures from the social and political sphere: from the president of the Balearic government Francina Armengol and councilor Natàlia Garriga to the president of Junts Laura Borràs, passing through second vice president of Parliament Assumpta Escarp, Antonio Balmón, Jordi Martí, Eduard Fernández, Josep Lluís Trapero, Josep Maria Argimon, Bonaventura Clotet…
And it is that none of them wanted to lose the granting of the highest distinction of the UB to the two distinguished singer-songwriters for, as the general secretary of the institution read, “having contributed decisively, through the musical group Els Setze Jutges, to the renewal of Catalan popular music within the framework of the fight for the recovery of language and culture and against the cultural extermination of Francoism”.
The ceremony had its inevitable paraphernalia with the entrance of the academic delegation, the voices and choral songs, the words of welcome, the imposition of the mortarboards or the words of the godfather of the new doctors, the professor of Modern History of the UB Agustí Alcoberro . He was the one who recalled that yesterday was not the first time that the university institution had granted such a distinction to figures from the musical orbit, and cited Pau Casals, Frederic Mompou, Victoria de los Ángeles, Jordi Savall, Riccardo Muti and Montserrat Caballé.
The dimension of the laureates was shown in many different areas, such as the expectation aroused around them, the charisma and affection that they spread, as well as their craft and professional and also, so to speak, personal excellence. And in this area, his commitment and his clear speech, which is structured around two very basic pillars: music and freedom. The noi from Poble Sec had some first words for his fellow Mallorcan winner –“Maria del Mar, I appreciate your love so much, it makes me so happy”– to continue announcing that “I will talk to you about what I know how to do, about the job of making songs and singing them (…), I recognize myself in this double task” which in his opinion “is essential for society”.
He placed similar emphasis in his commitment to fight for freedom before those who “want it for themselves but do not give it to others” and before “those who consider that freedom is that others think as they think, in their words.”
Maria del Mar Bonet was not far behind and was direct to the present when warning that “there are waves of fascists, fascistoids, that have returned to visible physical places and that try to prohibit everything that is prohibited, what they do not like or what is not they already liked it in Franco’s time”. For this reason, she placed the need to take to the streets to defend freedom on the near horizon.
Both speeches were accompanied by intense performances: Bonet rocked the Majorcan popular song Madona de s cabana backed on piano by Dani Espasa, while Serrat gave goosebumps with a Pare with Josep Mas on keyboard. And at the end of the ceremony they performed hand in hand – he told her: “are we going to sing together like Pimpinela?” – La Cançó de l’ amor petit that he wrote in 1980. As her rector said, the UB was party yesterday.
