The singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat received the National Culture Award yesterday 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’ve 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 (…). Writing songs is transforming dreams into small realities, essential to understand my time, what’s happening, what I want. The songs sometimes squeeze us, hit us, hurt us and kill us, but without the songs we wouldn’t 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 he retired from the stage, “for having become one of the most outstanding figures of modern Catalan song and in Spanish with his music, which draws from various genres such as French song, Catalan folklore, Andalusian copla, Argentine tango and bolero”. The award adds to the long list of recognitions he has received throughout his career around the world, from the Cross of Civil Merit of the Spanish Government to being named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor of France, in addition to distinctions such as the Grammy Award of Honor or several honorary doctorates, the last of which, from the University of Barcelona, ​​he received in March.
During the short 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 bass player Jorge Sarraute, on stage. Trained as a circus artist (clown, actress, saxophonist, acrobat and also show director), Sarraute exclaimed her surprise at the award, because “circus, women and motherhood need this visibility”, while asking support for the “contemporary hall circus, because the halls are empty. We need public, economic and political support”.
The painter Joan-Pere Viladecans (Barcelona, ​​1948), who received the award accompanied by the president of the MNAC, Joan Oliveras, wanted to remember that “a country without culture has no self-esteem or possibility of facing the world”, because “the country is what its art, music, architecture, theater or literature is, like a beacon of intense clarity”.
The translator Dolors Udina (Barcelona, ​​1953), for her part, celebrated the award as a member “of a sector that usually lives in the shadows and only recently comes to light”, and heralded an “age of ‘gold of translation’, at the same time he denounced the precarious conditions in the presence of the poet, translator and editor – and his partner – Antoni Clapés.
For the Eufonic festival, its director, Vicent Fibla, collected the award, together with historian and art critic Conxita Oliver. Fibla thanked his team and wished “long life to this creative periphery”, since it is a festival that combines innovation and tradition in the Terres de l’Ebre, with proposals based on sound, visual and performative arts .
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 representatives of the world of culture, among others the presidents of PEN Català , Laura Huerga; from the Association of Writers in the Catalan Language, 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.
