KEPA JUNKERA GLASGOW ROYAL CONCERT HALL

NEWS.scotman.com:Gig Review
Published Date: 23 January 2011
By JAN FAIRLEY

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KEPA Junkera is a great ambassador for the Basque country, and his concerts rarely disappoint. His trikitixa music, played on a variety of diatonic accordions, is accompanied by his inspiring band which includes the attractive sound of the txalaparta, a wooden xylophone-like instrument struck by a duo armed with rounded sticks.

Junkera often has a surprise up his sleeve and this time it was Leioa Kantika Korala, 15 young women led by Basilio Astulez. Their vocal harmonies were enhanced by choreographed moves whose sensual fluidity, visually enhanced by the sway of their multicoloured silken harem pants, added a captivating visual dimension.

However, having transformed the music of Basque mountain shepherds into something alluringly feel-good, Junkera makes no attempt to tell us what we're listening to. It was a tad frustrating to have a sequence of a dozen songs sung in Europe's most esoteric language with no explanation from the stage as to their subject and no good old-fashioned programme to inform us.

These imaginative settings of ancient ballads of the Bay of Biscay, collected by improvising bertsolari poet Xabier Amuriza, use beautiful melodies and in novel style several involve recorded fragments of Mongolian throat-singing. While the meaning remains a mystery, the overall effect was joyfully bucolic, as the women's clear, light voices wove glittering tapestries of sound. Crowned by Junkera's rapid-fire playing and his band's witty use of stamping tubes and an electrified cow's horn, this was a uplifting night defined by intriguing innovation.

The magician of the "trikitixa"

Published by Dani Chicano on July 6, 2010: www.avui.elpunt.cat
Foto de Lluis Serrat




After the concert on Friday night on the steps of Girona´s Cathedral, which Kepa Junkera offered, talking to with Miquel Basin, what is that you always enrich the conversation, a scholar in the field of music, and especially the has been called world music, in which in the traditional Catalan music that would be extremely well a figure that was the equivalent to Kepa Junkera in traditional Basque music. Junkera has achieved, among other things, which the trikitixa, Basque diatonic accordion linked to popular music and with a liberating function ceases to be a reviled instrument, frowned upon even by religious and social issues, usually related to rural and little academic places. The trikitilari from Rekalde understood that to maintain the tradition it needs to evolve, it must be renewed by applying a creative spirit. Shield against any alteration, to repeat over and above what can only be reliably lead to the disappearance or the relegation to the status of anthropological oddity. Junkera has recovered the trikitixa, but also the traditional Basque folk music and has adapted to the times, repeating this operation with the txalaparta and alboka, traditional Basque percussion and wind instruments, respectively, which together with the sound of trikitixa are the hallmark of Kepa Junkera and his group of excellent musicians. In Catalonia there are commendable efforts, such as Jordi Molina with the tenor, Artur Blasco (El Pont d'Arcalís), also accordionist with a long history and a lot of work of recovery behind his back, but none of the size, versatility and the international projection of Kepa Junkera, comparable to what has been done with the Galician gaita by Carlos Nunez, for instance. Just as Núñez and gaita (bagpipes), Junkera breathe the same rhythm as his instrument, which has an absolute dominance, spectacular, which allows him to play at a high speed without losing a single note, with vivid clarity. The symbiosis, perfect, allows to modular the speech to Kepa Junkera´s convenience, qualify it, to excite the public, who finished surrendered to him.


At the concert in Girona, Junkera, was accompanied by Iñigo Olazabal (Txalaparta, albota and percussions), Argibel Euba (txalaparta and percussions), Roberto Caballero (bass), José Luis Canal (piano) and José Ángel Telleria (drums). The majority of the songs played were from his album HIRI (2006)- Hiri, Kokkola, Buenos Aires, Reno, Agadir, Tatihou, Ataun and Napoli- in which Junkera, being an interpreter and composer, he was inspired by many cities of the world. The rest of the themes are from his album Bilbao 00:00 – (Bok Espok, Gaztelugatxeko) Maren -(Kaixarranka, Peliqueiroak terranovan) and Leon Orroeak (Zrkinipez)

www.kepajunkera.com

June 1st KEPA JUNKERA will give a Masterclass and a small musical performance at the Stanford University, California

Date: Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - 18:00
Location: German Library, Pigott Hall, Room 252
Light refreshments will be served.


The composer and musician Kepa Junkera, one of the most important Basque musicians of our time, producer, performer and composer of all his songs of the 17 albums that make up, till today, his musical career, including his amazing Bilbao 00:00h as one of his key works. In 2004 Kepa received the Latin Grammy Award for Best Folk Music for K and HIRI was named the best album of folk music in Europe by the World Music Charts.

Kepa Junkera will be introduced by the distinguished Basque writer, Bernardo Atxaga, who is Eusko Ikaskuntza Visiting Professor if the Basque Culture at Stanford University. Mr Kepa Junkera will offer an evening of Basque music spiced with the interpretation of a variety of traditional Basque music instruments.

KEPA JUNKERA will perform at the Chino Basque Club

Kepa Junkera will be visiting the Chino Basque Club on Saturday evening May 22. He previously played at the Basque Cultural Center.

Junkera told Euskal Kazeta that his visit to Chino will coincide with a recording session in Los Angeles, where he will perform with blues musicians. He also hopes to work on a new music video while he is in the area before returning to the Bay Area after the Chino concert. In recent months, Junkera has been trying something new by recording with artists from a variety of genres. The songs have been in Euskera, the Basque language.

Junkera is probably the best internationally known Basque musician. He won his Latin Grammy in 2003 for Best Folk Album.

Raised in the Basque province of Bizkaia, Junkera has temporarily relocated his family to the Bay Area while he works with different artists in the U.S. and Latin America.

Information gathered by the http://euskalkazeta.com

KEPA JUNKERA collaborates in the new CD of Kantika "KANTIKA SAKRA"

Kantika Korala presents their new album at the Champs Elysees Theater. The Champs Elysees Theater in Bilbao will host the 16th and 17th of March, two concerts by the Kantika Korala (Kantika Choir) from Leioa. A choir composed by fifty children between the ages of 10 to 17, directed by Basilio Astulez, that has been awarded important and numerous awards. They will be accompanied by the Young Orchestra of Leioa under the baton of Margarita Lorenzo de Reizábal, among some soloists.

The new album has, among others, the collaboration of the Young Orchestra of Leioa. To begin with the theme “Veni Sancte Spiritus” by the Japanese author Kentaro Sato to continue with the “Misa de Leioa” written by the argentine Dante Andreo. With the song “Magnificant” my Jaurne Garminde has participated KEPA JUNERA with his trikitixa, Ibon Koteron with the alboka and at the txalaparta Argibel Euba and Iñigo Olazabal. The concert will begin at 22:00.

information gather at ELCORREO.com

www.kepajunkera.com

Kepa Junkera Hopes to Spread Basque Music

18 February 2010 by Nancy Zubiri

Kepa Junkera, probably the best internationally known Basque musician, is currently living in the United States to produce an album that aims to promote Basque music to a larger audience.

“I want to expose our culture to the outside world,” he said in a recent interview with Euskal Kazeta.

Junkera arrived with his family last August and settled in San Rafael, just north of San Francisco. His three children are attending school there. He chose the Bay Area because it’s very cosmopolitan. “And,” he says, “the geography is a paradise.”
Junkera plays his trikitixa (diatonic accordion).

Junkera plays his trikitixa (diatonic accordion).

“I think it’s important that they learn other languages and cultures,” Junkera says about his children. But he’s quick to add that “my home is still Bilbao.”

The world music and Basque folk music accordionist – known in Basque as a trikitilari because of the special diatonic button accordion he plays – is working on a trio of CDs that include many artists.

Part of Junkera’s fame is his tendency to take traditional Basque music and give it a twist, creating something altogether new. But with his current project, he goes back to his roots with well-known songs from the Basque Country. He noted that some of his compatriots tend to think the traditional music can only be sung by Basques. He’s turning that idea on its head, by asking singers from many countries to sing songs in Euskera, the language of the Basque people.

The first two parts of his CD trilogy — Etxea (Home) and Kalea (Street) — have already been released, and he is currently working on the third, Herria (Country), which he hopes will be out in November.

Since he started the project, he has traveled to several Latin American countries such as Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, where he recorded with a number of singers. Now he is focusing on working with musicians in the United States. He recently went to San Antonio, Texas, to record some songs and play at the San Antonio Accordion Festival. And he has already recorded songs with people from around the globe who are living in the U.S., such as Chinese, Japanese and Armenian singers. San Rafael serves as his base of operations, he says, noting that he’ll rent a studio wherever he needs one, including Los Angeles, New York and Miami.
Junkera on stage with his band.

Junkera on stage with his band.

Junkera is a self-taught accordionist who grew up in a family where music overflowed. During the recent phone interview from his current home in San Rafael, Junkera recalled receiving his first trikitixa when he was about 10.

“Me dejaron una acordión muy viejita la pobre,” he said in Spanish – they gave him an old accordion. He taught himself to play it, listening to music and attempting songs on his own. Looking back, he thinks he may not have been so interested in the music if he had been formally taught. “When you realize you can do it, it gives you energy.”

He didn’t have a long-term goal when he started. “Each time you reach one goal, you start thinking of the next one,” he noted. He began playing music in the streets when he was about 12 or 13. He is grateful for being taken in by the Basque group Oskorri for several years, recording with them. He recorded his own first album in 1988, when he was 23. Since then he has recorded over a dozen more of his own albums, and began producing albums of other musicians as well. His album Hiri, released in 2006, won best World Music Album of the Year in Europe.
Junkera with his diatonic accordion.

Junkera with his diatonic accordion.

Junkera turns 45 this year, but he’s not tired of the trikitixa.

“Me da alegria,” he noted. It makes him happy. It’s uplifting music, he says. “It incites people to dance.”

The diatonic accordion has buttons on both sides and is traditionally played in a duet known as trikitilariak with another musician playing the tambourine or pandareta. It’s gone through a renaissance in the Basque Country in the last few years, which Junkera attributes to a change in the type of people who play it now.
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“It’s gone from the countryside to the city,” he said, adding that before, people who played it were not formally trained in music, whereas now, sophisticated musicians are taking up the instrument. In his own music, he has also promoted other traditional Basque instruments such as the txalaparta, the txistu and the alboka.

As part of his stay in the U.S., Junkera has scheduled several concerts. In January he performed at the Basque Cultural Center in South San Francisco, and he played at an arts center in Fallon, Nevada last November He has two concerts lined up in Lafayette, Louisiana for April 24 and 25 and perhaps another in Tempe, Ariz.

But he also frequently returns to Europe, to play there as well. He returned in November for the release of Kalea and will be there at the end of February for a concert with the orchestra of Euskadi.

Junkera said his goal has always been to share Basque music, and that is also the aim of his musical trilogy. “Basque music has a unique personality and it can be molded.”

For the three CDs, he has recorded with over 80 artists from 11 different countries, including Juanes, Pablo Milanes and Lila Downs. How did he meet all of them? Some he met while working with other musicians, while the names of others were passed along to him by musician friends.

Junkera noted that they have all reacted positively when he approached them about singing music in Basque.

“Musicians are people who are interested in culture,” he pointed out. Most of them were at least familiar with the Basque culture.

Typically he sends them the music and lyrics ahead of time, including a translation in their own language, so they know what they are singing about.

“But then I give them freedom to develop their own interpretation,” he noted.

See Kepa on myspace.

See Kepa Junkera’s website

See a song from Kepa’s Kalea album on Youtube

See Maitia Nun Zira from Kepa’s Etxea album on Youtube

Kepa talks about the release of the first CD of the trilogy, Etxea on Youtube.

Juanes sings Aldapeko with Kepa on his album Kalea

www.kepajunkera.com

BEST MEDIUM-LENGTH FILM AWARD FOR THE SHORT FILM "THE BASQUE BALL GAME" AT THE FIAMP AWARDS

The video, 'The Basque ball game' promoted by the Basque Museum, produced by K2000 and the music of Kepa Junkera, has been awarded BEST MEDIUM-LENGTH FILM, the decision was unanimous between the jury in the FIAMP AWARDS 2009, held at the National Cinema Museum in Turin, Italy.


This short film was selected from over more than 200 films that participated for this award, This short film show us the evolution of the hand ball game and all the different aspects that accompanies it, as the bleachers, spectators and the bets, while giving the audience a closer look of the making of the ball itself, the star of the film. It has been recorded and designed in high definition and is displayed on a 7 meter screen!

From here we want to congratulate each and every one that has taken part in making of this laborious film. Through image, music and the different sounds associated with the World of the Basque Ball Game, taking us to a detailed story filled with energy and all the different variants giving us the true essence of a game, the ball game, which is one of the most characteristic identities of our culture.

KALEA nominated for "BEST TRADITIONAL MUSIC ALBUM"

KALEA, Kepa Junkera´s lasted album has been nominated for the 14th Edition of the Music Awards in the section of the Music Awards in the section of “Best Traditional Music Album” the 17th of Feb. we will know the winners.

This time Kalea will compete against “Ao Vivo” by the Galician band Luar Na Lubre and the album “Alborado Do Brasil” by Carlos Nuñez.

Mikel Urdangarin with his song “Karoline” in the section of “Best Song in Euskera” (Basque language) and Fito Cabrales and his band “Fito y los Fitipaldis” in the section of Best Album, among others, are some of the Basque nominees in this Edition.

www.kepajunkera.com