Luis Ortega I Córdoba, (EFE) .
Baca, who closed the 42nd edition of the Cordoba Guitar Festival last night, has been “very happy” to be at the Cordoba event for the first time. And in a country like Spain where “the guitar is fundamental”, he pointed out in a meeting with EFE.
“It is an instrument that also reaches us all. Because the people who had a son and a musician son was born to him thought that a piano is very difficult. But a guitar was closer”, explains Baca. That he assures that in Peru “a guitar is not missing in a house”.
In addition, children “learn the first notes, the first things on a guitar.” Therefore, it is an instrument that “is a symbol for America” and that, although “it was brought by you”, there “we have given it another voice, another rhythm”, explains the Peruvian artist. That she challenges to “listen” how the guitarist “plays with a polyrhythm that is totally African heritage and plays with this”.
The guitar as an inheritance
Something that happens to one of the members of his group like Jonathan Mendoza with the acoustic guitar, who inherited his taste for the instrument “from his grandfather and his father”. But that can easily be extended to the rest of his colleagues in Córdoba, such as Óscar Huaranga (bass), Renzo Vignati (electric guitar). Alex Quijandria (voice), and Miguel Díaz ARC (percussion).
At 72, he acknowledges that it is a “great emotion” to have performed at the Córdoba Guitar Festival. A contest “known” in its country for its “poster of musicians” that have been presented in each edition. So she and her group feel “very proud” of her presence.
“We should have a Guitar Festival in Peru”, says Baca enthusiastically, since there “the guitar means a lot” and as she said before “in every house there is always a guitar” that “was an inheritance” because “grandfather bought and the son plays and the grandson plays and, although they are not professionals, someone comes from there”.
After a long and successful career, Susana Baca advises young emerging artists to “follow your dreams and don’t cut them short.” “Sometimes young people say, oh this is cool and we’re going to do this because people like this, but that’s something they shouldn’t think about,” she advises.
The landau special move
“You must follow what your soul feels and pursue it until the end of your days, since you may go to the grave without success. Without your audience growing to more than 20 people, that you play in a pub, but that you always agree with your spirit and don’t do something you don’t like. Or that you like it a little”, highlights Susana Baca.
Even so, the artist values the new creations of young Latinos and highlights that “young people take an Afro-Peruvian rhythm such as ‘landó’ and create on it. There are incredible mixes of landau with rock, of landau with jazz, especially with jazz, and it looks very good, due to the very special movement that landau has”.
In Córdoba, Susana Baca has celebrated her fifty-year career to present her latest album entitled “Palabras Urgentes”, published in 2021 and which is a “reflection of her experiences” and a “protest demonstration” to generate debate.
The Peruvian artist, a social reference for generations in Latin America, defends that music continues to be “a powerful tool for sociocultural change” and wants all the people who attend her concerts to feel “the love of life and also the love of truth of living”. EFE