I seek to open the Basque songs to the World

Published in DEIA by Andrés Portero

Kepa Junkera presented yesterday Herria, a record that concludes the trilogy of euskaldun music recorded next to musicians of other countries that started with Etxea and followed by Kalea, so that it can be internationally known the songs of the Basques, mainly in the Diaspora.

Bilbao. The Basque musician puts an end to the trilogy after collaborating with 130 artists of more than thirty different countries, from Estrella Morente to Teresa Salgueiro, Juanes, Aute, Calamaro, Lila Downs or Leo Gieco. In Herria he is in the company of musicians like Glen Vélez, Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Justin Vali or Dave Douglas, distinguished musicians that he adds Boise's choruses, of gospel or of the American Indians, to sing and play to songs as Boga boga, Hator hator, Egun da Santi Mamiña, Ene izar maitea, Eperrak or Agur Xiberua. "When it’s upon creating I am ambitious" Kepa Junkera explains to us in this interview. "I wanted to share our inheritance with the most possible people, to open it to the world," he adds on.

Satisfied or exhausted?


I am calm. I remember when I designed the project in a notebook and the energy that I had then. Now it´s no longer the same, obvious.


Now would you think in getting yourself in this intensive project?


I don't know. Definitely I have asked myself, where did I get myself into. Over all because I had the sensation that the project was unembraceable, that there were many things left behind. The fact is that I know a lot of musicians and, besides, a lot of doors have been opened unto me. Regardless of everything, I look at the result and I feel satisfied. I’m sure that I would do it again.


The numbers overwhelm.


Yes. In Herria 130 artists of 28 different countries have participated. The total of the three records have been; 155 singers, 128 musicians, 17 producers, 53 technicians, 38 recording studios, I have visited 49 countries, worked with 15 photographers and 3 cameramen... At the end, I have recorded 74 songs. I am very happy because eclectic people have collaborated, more or less known.


The most sluggish work would be closing the agenda of so many musicians and the country.


Right, the most tiresome is always the work of coordination and infrastructure. It is sending an e-mail to the people, the translated song, to close hotels and the days of the recording studios to record in other countries ... That, that is not a part of the creative process, takes a lot of energy away but at the same time your so happy seeing how the people have responded to your email.


For Herria you have visited New York, Casablanca, Athens, Boise, Paris, Los Angeles, San Antonio and Istanbul...


In the American part, Istanbul and Athens I had more time then when I’m going to perform. We were allowed more time, recording during the week and making the calendar the way we like it, placing the pieces of the puzzle.


The record and the whole trilogy project surpass ambition.


I am an ambitious musician when it is a matter of creating. I have never been afraid of the projects, yes in respect to share them. However, it was a help for me to be surrounded by a good team that has always backed me up. I have felt strong. Also it is true that there are several types of ambition. In the beginning, for example, there is like a need, a desire of learning and feeling. After that you think about creating, to go further on than just to be a musician, of the composition and the interpretation, and to be producer, to dream up new stadiums and to construct them. That is a privilege.


Do you feel yourself more than a trikitilari?


I like it when they call me "trikitilari" (trikitilari is a basque word meaning the person who plays the diatonic accordion) it means that at last they have admitted me in the club of the trikis. (laughing)


It was hard work, wasn’t it?


I am so proud to have known that traditional world and being part of them. The only thing I can do is to thankful to all of them because I still admire Fasio, Laja, Sakabi, Tapia ... Then I felt the need to do different things ,now knowing another musical dimension. There are people that relate me with the folk music, others with my most global projects ... I have the sensation of not being able to show all that I am that always something stays behind.


You’re talking about learning, right?


Yes, and always in a humble and curiosity way. We have to have our eyes wide open because there is very creative and talented persons out there that frightens you when you meet. These projects have made me have a much more positive vision of the people and to canalize my energy in a creative way.


What role does Herria in the trilogy have?


It is the last leg, the one that closes this project. I like very much the three titles: Etxea, Kalea and Herria. House, street, town ... We decided these titles, the designers that I work in Madrid and me from the sketches that I presented them. I like to take part inside the world of design and the album’s esthetics and in the videos. I’m always trying to contribute because they do know more, but you have a complementary vision that just might work.


In "Etxea" you talked about an invitation to our house- metaphor of the Basque Country, of your song book and culture - to other people.


Definitely, but the idea is simpler than all of that. It was recording euskaldunes songs that I like and sharing them with musicians that I admire from other countries and places. Mainly, what I look for is the people of the Basque Diaspora who listen to those songs that they learned in there time interpreted by people of their country of adoption. Next you can add literature to them, as Saramago wrote before and now, in Herria, Bernardo Atxaga.


In this last record arises a tremendous curiosity, like the participation of the American Indians.


Yes, they belong to several tribes: Cherokees, Navahos and Cheyenne’s. I have made them sing side by side with the descendants of the Basque shepherds, people of California, Nevada and Idaho.


How did you choose between so many collaborators and so many cities?


I decided on the people that I admire, well known as Glen Vélez, greek Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Justin Vali, Dave Douglas ... and other unknown. And I took notice of the cities that I could see as open doors, for example, Casablanca toward Africa or Istanbul toward Orient. Also I chose Paris and New York, where you can find every type of musicians, of Hawaii, of Philippines, of Pakistan, of Armenia, Iran...


Once you told me that you were scared of collaborating with singers when being yourself an instrumental musician.


At the beginning it was a respectable and ignorance issue. I am the producer, back to back with other musicians, and I am with them when they sing. At the end, I decide and the voice gives me so much respect. They all have helped me so much and have given everything, without divisions. The voice is an incredible instrument.


Speaking about the sound, Herria is the most exotic album out of three, right?


Yes, it has many curious things. We have blues, jazz, gospel, folk of different latitudes ... With the Indians I chose the option of leaving it very tribal. With Douglas I chose the improvisation, in order to
give freedom to the musicians. I look for what they could contribute with their vision to my previous ideas. I have heard these songs before recording them.


The final result come closer to the one you have listened to in your imagination?


In some cases it has surprised me. Like Hator hator that is recorded with a Louisiana's gospel choir. It’s difficult to talk about the songs, you have to hear them. What's curious about the project is that I can feel that there is a main strong thread between the three albums in spite of being so different the participating interpreters.


Has the trilogy been better accepted outside than in the Basque Country?


I don't know! I am used to people that has always encouraged me and others that has criticized me. I listen to the whole world, but I follow my road trying to be humble and tolerant. I try to understand the criticism, it is not right to think that what one has in mind is correct.


I can imagine that the dispute with the subvention worth millions that you received from Basque Government is the worst moment of this project.


It’s a part of it. At the end, you hold on to the good things although definitely it was a difficult circumstance. And I assume it. I do not know if they are going to be able to understand the project now that it has been concluded. There will be people that will not listen to it, but I am optimistic. The bad moments are also a part of one.


And they inure.


Absolutely. I have never had it easy. I am self-educated and I got involved in a world, the one of the triki, in which I did not give out the stereotype, from being of city, giving me a lot of detractors. And with this project the same thing. I seek to make a contribution and to share this legacy of our inheritance with all the people possible. I wanted to open it with the world. And I have felt myself with a lot of strength, what I have demonstrated to myself is that I come from Rekalde. It is a pride to be from a neighborhood, inures in the challenges.

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.
Easy AdSense by Unreal

“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

HABANA SESSIONS HAS JUST BEEN RELEASED !

Kepa Junkera´s new album HABANA SESSIONS has just been released on the market.

This album is a duo with the Cuban pianist Rolando Luna, is a true reflection of a reunion between two fantastic musicians, giving out quality and complicity but over all demonstrating to us that the music and art only understands feelings, experiences and sensations.

This new album includes 11 musical pieces in which you will only hear the sounds of a piano and a trikitixa, HABANA SESSIONS that will complete the project of FANDANGO he started last year in June with Provença Sessions.

A contagious album full of quality and freshness with the trikitixa and the melodies of Kepa Junkera, entirely recorded in the city of Havana (Cuba) in April 2009

Junkera has spiced with simplicity and subtlety of the Cuban musician Rolando Luna, the pianist of the group “Buena Vista Social Club” starring together in a different and personal CD, filled with strength and with a special energy, receiving each other’s music with absolute complicity and seeking to convey the essence of a direct concert, feeling the closeness with their public.

Following the line of the FANDANGO project, in which HABANA SESSIONS is part of, the CD gives us an overview of the themes that best suits the essence of this compilation. Two musicians that meet in any small local or in any place of the world and start to play their instruments.

A clear, honest and intimate album with a predecessor that comes to define FANDANGO, as one of the most eclectic projects, musically speaking, in Kepa Junkera´s discography.

To listen to the single or buy the album visit:
www.kepajunkera.com