CARLOS NUÑEZ TALKS TO GLAZZ! MAGAZINE

“Playing with The Chieftains has been like being in the Paradise”

Carlos Nuñez, born in Galicia, one of the Celtic places in Spain apart from Asturias, is a charismatic piper who plays the tradicional “gaita” (bagpipes) from this Spanish place.

He started playing when he was a child, and by that time he already was a remarkable master player always influenced by “the traditional, classic and medieval music”.

He represented Galicia in the Lorient Festival in the French Britanny. This festival is the biggest cultural manifestation of the Celtic Countries. Every year, there is a contest between pipers which is the equivalent of the Nobel Prizes of the bagpipes, “the Mcallan Contest”. Carlos won it three times in a row: “For me it was something like the Olimpic Games of the bagpipes. I was the whole year preparing the contest, the music, the technique, practicing some sports, but nothing of girls! I never opened all the whisky bottles I got as a prize, ha ha…”

After that, he started his internacional career meeting the Chieftains: “Playing with the Chieftains since I was eighteen years old has been like being in the paradise too soon. I think I have never felt nothing like playing and recording with them”. But this was only the beggining, because he continued playing with hundred of musicians from all over the world like Alan Stivel, Sharon Shannon, Dulce Pontes, Roger Hodgson, Altan… When we asked him which of those masters have marked him more, he says that “It is true that I have predilection for the mature artists, the Picassos of the music. Compay Segundo, Ry Cooder, Montserrat Caballé, some of the flamenco, jazz and tradicional music masters have been the highlights of my colaborations”.

He is one the most known “ambassadors” from his place, showing its culture and roots to all the world: “I feel like very beloved by my fans, and it is true that in Galicia they are a lot. In the live concert DVD we recorded in Vigo, 30,000 people came to the venue. This would not seem very normal for this kind music, the Celtic music, but it is true that it is a sort of reward to all the hard work of showing this music to everyone and expand its language thanks to its natural connections with the different musics from all the world”.

Something he have experienced during all his trips is that “in many countries, different people and different bands are thinking and playing with the same ideas without knowing each other. But it is true that the place where I have noticed a bigger enthusiasm for the birth of a new synthesis is Latin America. There are a lot of bagpipes bands and bands from Buenos Aires to La Habana or Mexico which are aware of the treasure they have in their hands, and all the excitement they have for the life”.

When Carlos is not playing his “gaita”, he likes listening to some music, the last album he got is the reedition of “Sketches of Spain”, for Miles Davis; and he says that “in my MP3 player I have thousands of musics from Brazil. From old recordings of 1904 to nowadays music, as I have been travelling Brazil during almost two years. I am ending my new album, which is the result of those Brasilian musical explorations, where I have found a kind of future Celtic music, because the hability of how this country has mixed the European Medieval heritage with the African and the Indigenuos”.

This year, Carlos is playing in Saint Patrick´s Festival in Dublin: “Some years ago I used to celebrate Saint Patrick with The Chieftains in the Carnegie Hall of New York, but lately it seems that the shock wave has come back to its origins, and now we celebrate it in Dublin. Here is different, it is not as spectacular as in New York, but it is deeper. I feel like at home. Even the Irish Prime Minister attends to my concerts! That is something that never happened to me in Spain”.

The concert will be next Sunday the 15th in the Nacional Concert Hall: “We are going to mix the simphony orchestra with the tradicional Celtic music instruments. It will be a musical trip through worlds so different as the music of the contemporary Ireland, Galicia, Cuba, flamenco… We will listen, also, some original film soundtracks in which I have collaborated , such as the Spanish movie “The Sea Inside” (Oscar winner in 2004) and the Japanesse “Gedo Senki” of the master Miyasaki. Some collaborations with Ruichi Sakamoto, with the Chieftains, and of course classic music inspired in the traditional one, as the very difficult “Muineira de Sarasate” which I have been maturing and working during the last twenty years till we are going to play it live. Moreover, along with the orchestra, my whole band will be playing, including the new revelation of the Irish Music Niamh ni Charra who has been playing with us all around the world during the last two years”.

15 March 2009 08:00 PM - Main Auditorium
Carlos Nuñez Orchestra of the National Concert Hall
http://www.nch.ie/

By Xandru Fernández

Photos : Alexandre Moulard