boats

–What is “Celtic Sea”?

–A very special album because it is born from the collaboration with Britanny Ferries, the company that connects with its ships passengers going from Spain to France, Ireland, England and other Celtic countries. The artistic collaboration between a musician and a company that moves passengers across the Atlantic is novel. This album has a special connection with the music of Zamora, from the Vía de la Plata. We have invited Alberto Jambrina to play all these instruments and they are melodies that have been collected by Miguel Manzano, who is another wise man also from Zamora.

–What does the collaboration with the shipping company consist of?

–The album is designed to be played on Brittany Ferries ships, which carry three million English, German, French and Spanish passengers a year, an international audience. The album has a kind of Celtic anthem for those trips across the Atlantic, the melody to wake up on the boats in your cabin and a symphony that lasts more than 40 minutes, with music from all the Celtic countries. Brittany Ferries has also asked us to include music from the interior as well. The Vía de la Plata is very interesting because it has that very Iberian, very Spanish component and at the same time it reaches practically to the Atlantic, a communication route from inland Spain to the north and south.

–In the symphony, I suppose, is where music from different origins follows one another?

–It is a symphony that passes through many countries, you are listening to the music of Cornwall, Scotland, Brittany, Ireland and suddenly that comes, the music of Galicia, of Zamora, of the Basque Country. There are musicians from many countries playing together, so that the music of the Vía de la Plata not only plays Jambrina the flute and the drum, but you have British or North American musicians also playing those traditional music. All that music from the Vía de la Plata was collected by the musicologist from Zamora called Miguel Manzano.

–I thought that almost no one went by boat anymore.

–Yes, it is beautiful, because they are also boats in which you can take the car down. In Spain they reach Santander and the Basque Country, perhaps in the future they will reach Galicia.

–He has just presented the album and is already coming to Zamora.

–To celebrate this album we are going on an international tour, which starts in Zamora. The live premiere of the album will be at the Teatro Principal in Zamora, with two concerts and then the tour will go through Madrid, Barcelona, ​​all of Spain and then we will go to Brittany, St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin and we will end at the Royal Concert Hall from Glasgow in Scotland. In each country we invite musicians from each place. In my group I have musicians from the United States, the Basque Country or Galicia and in Zamora the great Alberto Jambrina will be with us to play this music.

–They demand a lot from you to play in Zamora.

–It’s a beautiful love story. I always say that the Zamora audience is one of the best in the world, because they are profound people who like traditions and enjoy the party, they have it all. You Zamorans are very faithful to your traditions and your roots. And it has been our tradition to return to Zamora at Christmas for years and then, in summer, we try to visit some inland town: Fermoselle is a beautiful place and it is a happiness to see those inland towns alive. Concerts are a very nice way to attract people.

–Has economic backwardness been good for maintaining these purer traditions?

–Without a doubt, going at a slower speed in development has saved them from the perverse part of industrialization. In the end we are happier than people who live in industrial cities, in a more dehumanized and gray world. I think it is a more interesting life if you manage, which is not easy, to live in your place of origin. Things are changing a lot. Before there was the imagination that paradise was the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, tourist destinations, but I think that those mass-market tourist products have already passed. It will be a matter of time and of overcoming that complex that everything in the city was better. Rather than making Madrid a very large city, it is better to distribute the work and activity throughout the country, especially in the interior. Not only in economic terms, but also in psychologically overcoming complexes: the big city is no better than living in a town. Today, tradition is luxury, living in a place with tradition is luxury, something that not everyone can achieve.

–Does the future of roots music depend on virtuosos like you?

–Right now the key is to create great teams, connect, it is something wonderful that Celtic music, Interceltism, has.