Pablo Sáinz-Villegas (Logroño, 1977) enters into a moment of communion with the guitar. The most international Spanish guitarist, who experts say is the successor to the great Andrés Segovia, picks up the instrument, looks at it, plays it, even smells it, surrounded by the almost palpable silence that fills the Suso Monastery, a temple of Visigothic era World Heritage Site and full of inspiration and beauty for the musician. After a while, he sits down and performs a piece. A special moment that the camera captures, as seen in the video that accompanies this piece.
It is not easy to be alone with Sáinz-Villegas. In her 25-year career, she has performed in more than 40 countries and, although she has lived long periods in the US, she does not have a fixed residence. It is enough to observe the main milestones of her trajectory to understand it. Two years ago she played the Concierto de Aranjuez, a universal Spanish work, with the Berlin Philharmonic, one of the most important orchestras in the world. He has long promoted the candidacy of the classical guitar for Unesco to declare it Intangible Heritage of Humanity while his foundation, Music Without Borders Legacy, has already brought music to 45,000 children around the world with difficult access to culture. And it was John Williams, the famous composer who won five Oscars for his soundtracks, who invited him to interpret the first piece for guitar composed by him. He talks about all of this, but also about his motivations, what inspires him and what he aspires to in the coming years, in the video.
At the age of 7, the first time he went on stage, at school, he admits that he already felt like an artist: “It was the communication with the public,” recalls the guitarist in the dressing room of the National Music Auditorium in Madrid, moments before rehearsals with the Belgian National Orchestra, with which he gave a concert on April 12. There, dressed for the street, he offers a small preview of what he will interpret next on stage.
When Sáinz-Villegas arrives in Spain, he returns, whenever he can, to La Rioja, where he has taken his music through the Fundación Legado Música sin Fronteras with concerts for children and young people, and where he seeks to reconnect with nature, which he enjoyed so much. when he was young. The man from La Rioja strives to return the guitar to the place it deserves, to that of the great theaters of the world; a space, he says, that the instrument has been losing over the years: “Music belongs to the people and this instrument, so linked to a culture, to a country, Spain, is the most democratic that exists, the most close to people’s hearts,” he says.
“The value of the guitar lies in the fact that it is between the popular and the classical. He makes friends. Around a fire, in the street singing a serenade or in a court in the Renaissance”, says this nomadic musician, who combines his performances on the big stages of Europe and the US with performances on the street in Tijuana (Mexico) surrounded by young or in their homeland. “The intention is the same, it doesn’t matter who you perform in front of, only the wrapping paper changes”, says the guitarist, who is determined to inspire each of the spectators and convince them of the universality of this very Spanish instrument.
CREDITS:
Editorial coordination: Juan Antonio Carbajo and Francis Pachá
Writing and script: Mariano Godson
Production: Paloma Oliveira
Realization: Quique Oñate
Camera operator: María Page
Drone operator: Yeray Martín Perdomo
Edition and color: Paula D. Molero
Sonido: Christian Aira Bewick
Graphics: Pablo G. Miralles
THANKS:
Hotel Marqués de Riscal (Elciego, Álava)
Mariano Conde guitar shop (Madrid)
Ibermusic Foundation
