December 29, 2024

UN PIANO DE DOMINGO / SUNDAY PIANO
Josep-Maria Balanyà, piano solo

Domingo 29 diciembre 2024, 12:00 / December 29, Sunday, 2024, 12 am, High noon
Casino de Huesca - Plaza de Navarra 6 - 22002 Huesca - Spain

Crítica de mi anterior concierto en este Casino / Review of my previous concert at this Casino.

English version below

EN
Reporter: Luis Lles
Newspaper: Diario del Alto Aragón

There are different ways to play a piano, to approach its sound. Barcelona-born Josep-Maria Balanyà is undoubtedly committed to the most creative and free approach. In fact, his proposal is closer to what would be a performance than an orthodox concert. Do n't mind 2018 was the title of the concert-performance that this experienced Catalan avant-garde musician offered on Sunday in the Música en el Casino cycle. It was not the first time that he performed in Huesca. He already did it many years ago in a tribute to Robert Wyatt organized by the Periferias festival. And he returned more recently to the capital of Huesca for a musical improvisation course at the Conservatory.

The concert was preceded by an extensive explanation of what awaited the respectable audience in the following hour. In addition to advancing the program, Balanyà presented the different instruments/elements that he was going to use to build his very free sound architecture: jazz brushes, marimba sticks, corks, sticks, a comb and even a credit card, from the who, with great humor, said that when he rubbed it against the piano strings it sounded like when the card has no credit. In fact, the sense of humor and irony flew over the entire concert, which, despite constituting a challenge for a large part of the spectators (more accustomed to a certain orthodoxy), the truth is that very few desertions were recorded among a audience that was very attentive to the development of his peculiar performance, in which there was not even a nod to Els Segadors (Catalan song).

But beyond the impact caused by his transgressive spirit, Josep-Maria Balanyà is a pianist with an enviable technique and disconcerting agility. It began with a piece in which he took full advantage of the piano as a percussion element, using brushes and drumsticks on the piano and its guts, as well as on the hair of the spectators in the front row, achieving at times a similar hypnotic effect. that of Indonesian gamelan or the percussive minimalism of Steve Reich. A good start, without a doubt. Without concessions. Then he began his series The Shining with the first part, characterized by an unusually fast, lively pianism, as if it were a fluttering of bells on a sunny morning, somewhere between impressionism and expressionism.

In Minimal Chant he surprised with a rushed, plaintive and parodic singing, something like the reverse of what Wim Mertens, his nemesis, does with his voice. In Archaic Rubbers she used Brazilian corks that gave the song a dry and threatening sound, at times connected to the sonority of the marimba. On the other hand, The Shining Number Two represented his most delicate and impressionistic side, with minimalist Philip Glass-style airs, occasionally interrupted by guttural songs, indigenous echoes and screams. The finale, with the Celestial interlude, corresponded to Dilemma & Shining, a long piece that is closer to the sound aesthetics of improvisation and free jazz, and in which he used the credit card as an instrument, as well as some light sticks, sometimes rubbed with a bow, which gave rise to one of the most experimental episodes of what was an excellent evening. Josep-Maria Balanyà, in what constitutes a kind of metamusical adventure, prefers to explore the echoes of the piano, its most mysterious recesses, than to allow himself to be carried away by the pleasure of simply touching it. It was a brilliant, magnetic, magnificent performance.

Josep-Maria Balanyà
Piano
Casino de Huesca