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The “dream” by Gorka Hermosa, which will ring out in Brandenburg for peace: “Music connects peoples”

His work is called “Peace Dream” and is full of symbolism: the music of Gorka Hermosa, the accordionist and composer who was born in Urretxu and grew up in Zumárraga, can be heard next to the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on the instruments of a Ukrainian soloist. himself a Russian and Gipuzkoan interpreter, together with the Potsdam Chamber Orchestra. “Music connects people and nations and we will show that in Berlin these days, at the Pantonale Peace Festival 2023, which expressly commissioned this piece from me,” says Hermosa from the German capital.

The “punk accordionist”, as he humorously calls himself, travels the world with his music and always surprises: on Saturday he performed in Ordizia, on Sunday he flew to Berlin and due to flight delays he arrived on time for the concert presentation of the festival in the German city. “I arrived at the airport at six o’clock in the evening, took a taxi, got dressed in the car and just arrived to finish the opening concert with my three planned pieces.”

Peace Festival:

Gorka Hermosa premieres “Peace Dream” with the Potsdam Chamber Orchestra and fellow accordionists Anna Krishtaleva and Radu Ratoy.
Friday:

In the Chamber Hall of the Berlinale Philharmonic at 6 p.m.
Saturday:

On the stage next to the Brandenburg Gate, from 3:00 p.m.

That Monday, Hermosa was calmer: she rehearsed in the morning and at noon she took the call from this newspaper to explain the challenges that await her this week. Because if the Brandenburg appointment on Saturday is symbolic, Friday is also something special, no less than with the Berlin Philharmonic, where he will experience the world premiere of his “Friedenstraum” for string orchestra and two soloists as a soloist with the Potsdam Chamber Orchestra for him: Russia’s Anna Krishtaleva and Ukraine’s Radu Ratoi, “the accordionist who has won so many of the world’s recent international competitions”.

This new composition seeks to show how music “unites people, cities and culture,” Hermosa defines. To do this, he has related a traditional Ukrainian and a Russian theme “on a journey through struggle, love, hate, war or hope, with a concluding requiem that invites us to believe in the future,” he explains. “The work is divided into three parts: an introduction lovingly portraying this relationship, a second section or main part focusing on struggle and war, and the last part, coda, showing hope for a better future. “ It is a piece in an expressionist style with echoes of film, traditional and rock music.”

It’s the latest twist in a long career and busy life for a musician who “comes from many places,” he jokes. “I come from a family with roots in the south, I was born in Urretxu and have lived across the river, in Zumarraga, since I was six years old.” He also lived in Valladolid and other places, but settled in Cantabria for twenty years down, “in Miengo, a small town near Santander and in a beautiful place overlooking the sea.” I live near the conservatory where I still teach accordion: teaching is essential for me, it I enjoy training other accordionists and seeing them succeed.”

Jazz, classical and popular

Unlike Hermosa, these young people do not have to partially justify the importance of the accordion in international music. “For my parents’ generation, the accordion was the street party, the pasodoble, or a little later ‘María Jesús and her accordion’ and ‘the little birds’.” My fifth graders’ accordionists chose cultured or contemporary music. I tried to mix from jazz to basque and popular tradition, moving through classical and being close to the people.”

He has played in Berlin before and is now preparing for the intense week: Friday’s appointment in the Kammersaal of the Berlin Philharmonic’s mythical headquarters is Friday at 6 p.m., the Saturday performance next to The Brandenburg Gate begins at 3 p.m. with different interpretations by different artists. “We are all committed to peace, from the artists to the organization itself: the director of the festival is of German-Russian origin.”

“My work combines traditional Russian and Ukrainian melodies and ends with a message of hope,” says the composer.

“I was born in Urretxu, grew up in Zumárraga, moved around the world and have lived in a town in Cantabria for twenty years.”

Because Hermosa travels the world from her Cantabrian homeland, as her press office emphasizes: “In the last five years, her compositions have been performed by more than 40 orchestras all over the world (USA, Korea, Brazil, Turkey and …). European orchestras such as the Berliner Symphoniker Strings) and the list of awards the musician from Urretxu has collected confirm his international recognition.”

According to his official syllabus, he was awarded the CIA-IMC UNESCO Composition Prize in 2013 and won four times the Best Composition for Accordion Prize awarded by the World Association of Accordionists, an organization that organized the competition in Tianjin (China) in 2022. “Gorka Hermosa” where accordionists from all over the world perform their works.

In 2020 he was named Tourism Ambassador of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, in 2019 the Accademia di Música Hermosa in Nicosia (Italy) was founded in his honor and in the same year he was selected in a macro poll by the New York magazine Accordion Stars , attended by 27,000 people from 126 countries participated, as “one of the 10 most popular accordionists in the world”. Berlin is the next challenge.