2023-11-08 20:58:06
Wednesday, November 8, 2023, 15:39 | Updated 7:58 p.m.
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With the impetus of the success of the record book ‘We are a song’, two years later, Jon Maia has presented the second part of this work, ‘We are a new song’. This time too, several collaborators have participated in the project, including Silvio Rodríguez. Cuban songwriters singing in Basque the song called ‘Nostalgia’, made to the tunes of Gorka Hermosa. Itziar Ituño, Olaia Inziarte, Madrid singer-songwriter Luis Pastor, Mikel Kazalis, Maddalen Arzallus, Ibrahima Balde (Miña), Ulu media and Elizondo Choir Ttikia have been accompanied by Jon Maia in this project this time
Two years ago Jon Maia collected songs written for other singers and groups in the last 30 years in the ‘Kanta bat gara’ project. Now he has published his second record book with the collaboration of many other artists. He has collected a total of 13 songs, four of which are versions (the songs of Negu Gorriak, Pello Reparaz, Gozategi and Gari). The book contains a free poem of 60 pages, which contains the history of the Basque language and the Basque Country.
The bertsolist and writer from Urretxu has admitted that this project has been his “greatest work”. He has acknowledged that he needs a “motivation” or “starting point” when creating his works, and in the album ‘Kantu bat gara’ that was ‘Bereterretxeren Kanthoria’, “the oldest Basque song we know, with music and lyrics, from the 15th century. from the beginning of the century”, he recalled. A song created 600 years ago, which has come down to us word of mouth from century to century, territory to territory. How is it possible to make that 600-year journey within a small language like ours and with all the historical things that have happened to us, and today come alive to the time of Youtube, the time of spotfy?”.
For this reason, the starting point of the project was “the language that has traveled within the people for 600 years”. “The secret of our survival is in the journey of that song”, adds Maia. “Basque has given me the identity I have and even if I never write a thousand books, albums, songs, I will never be able to give back to Basque and the Basque Country what it has given me. My constant reminder is that he has given me the opportunity to come back, and that is the ‘new song’ we are”.
We are a new song project
In November 2021, Maia presented the album ‘Kantu bat gara’, her first solo album, after previously working on the Benta and Hezurbeltzak projects in Karidade. In the book, in addition to recording his songs, he collected reflections on songwriting or the format of songs.
In the last three decades, the bertsolari from Gipuzkoa has written about 200 songs. Gozategi, Mikel Urdangarin, Gari, Soziedad Alkoholika, Hertzaina or Ken Zazpi groups, Anari and many others have sung his texts and made them popular. Now, Maia has recovered and ‘transformed’ these texts, making new versions in collaboration with top musicians. He brought together the accordionist Gorka Hermosa, the cellist Pello Ramirez and the keyboardist Nacho Soto in the first project and gave several concerts with them.
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