New portrait for BCN VA: Joan Chamorro. /  by Toni Ricart

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"The jazz community worldwide is gonna thank you one day, I’m telling you. What you’ve done is a great service to this music". This is how saxophonist Jesse Davis spoke to an emotional Joan Chamorro in the film A Film About Kids and Music. And he was right, because Chamorro has created a group of excellent young jazz musicians, unique in our country. While we were preparing the photo session at his jazz house in the San Andreu neighbourhood, I asked him what he considered to be his most personal work, the Sant Andreu Jazz Band or the groups where he plays with other professional musicians. He tells me that it's all the same work, because his youngsters, at the head of a time, are already so good that he can play with them at any level.

He talks passionately about how his students learn, how they fall in love with jazz, and how they then fly solo. And about the secret of it all: listening and studying a lot.

Joan Chamoro studied saxophone at the Barcelona Municipal Conservatory and graduated from the Taller de Músics de Barcelona.

He has given master classes in schools and conservatories all over the country and also in Colombia, USA, Mexico, Poland, France, Sweden, Switzerland and Italy, presenting his San Andreu Jazz Band project (a different way of learning music).

He is a member of the Taller de músics Big Band and collaborates with Bellaterra's Big Band, John Dubuclet's Big Band, Jazz Terrassa Big Band, Eladio Reinon-Tete Montoliu's Supercombo, the Orquesta de Radiotelevisión Española, Manhattan Transfer and Stevie Wonder among others. He has played with great jazz figures such as Slide Hampton, Tete Montoliu, Frank Foster, Teddy Edwards, Frank Wess, Bebo Valdés, Randy Brecker, Gary Smulyan, Dick Oatts, Jesse Davis, Dennis Rowland, Carmen Lundy, John Mosca, David Allen, Bobby Shew and Judy Niemack.

In 2006, Chamorro founded the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, where he teaches young musicians (7 to 21 years old). He is the producer of the Joan Chamorro Presenta collection, which includes some of the members of the Sant Andreu Jazz Band, such as Andrea Motis, Eva Férnandez, Rita Payés, Elia Bastida and Alba Armengou, among others.

He has recorded some eighty albums and has received various awards such as the Arco, Altaveu, Jaç and Enderrock prizes.


Film director Carla Simón, a new portrait for the project "Barcelona valoRs afegits". /  by Toni Ricart

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It has been a pleasure to portray Carla Simón, an author I have admired since I saw her film Estiu 1993. We talked about about her work process and her next film, which has been interrupted by the pandemic. During the photographic session, I recognize in her paused way of speaking and moving the very peculiar rhythm of Estiu 1993, where Carla knew how to recreate with mastery, the tempo of the days of that special summer seen with the eyes of a child.

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Carla graduated in Audiovisual Communication from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 2009; she took the Master in Quality and Innovation TV organized by the Televisió de Catalunya in 2010 and the Master of Arts at the London Film School (postgraduate scholarship from Obra Social "la Caixa"). In London she directed the documentary Born Positive and the short fiction film Lipstick.
Estiu 1993 (Summer 1993), released in 2017, is Carla Simón's first feature film. It was shot in Catalan and according to the author it aims to respond to how death is explained to a minor and how to understand what is happening around her from the silences and gestures.
Estiu 1993 won the Best First Film Award and the Generation Kplus Grand Prix Jury Award at the Berlinale 2017 . It also won the Golden Biznaga at Málaga Film Festival, the Jury Mention at Istanbul Film Festival or the Best Direction at BAFICI, amongst others.

Carla Simón web site


Les ganyotes del vent /  by Toni Ricart

Sailing along the Costa Brava, I photographed the rocks, from Sant Feliu de Guixols to Cap de Creus, where erosion has sculpted shapes and colours for centuries. Hidden faces that watch the sailor: the grimaces of the wind.

Musician portrait: Adrienne Auclair /  by Toni Ricart

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Portrait session on a hot July afternoon. Adrienne is spending a few days at home and every morning we enjoy her cello practice. We even had the good fortune to hear a wonderful duet with my son Biel on the violin.

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Adrienne Auclair began playing the cello at the age of 7 and singing at the Maîtrise de l'Opéra de Tours. In 2011, she joins Raphaël Pidoux's class at the CRR of Paris. At the same time, she received instruction from Hélène Dautry, Sébastien Hurtaud, Yovan Markovitch, Marc Coppey, François Salque... She obtains her DEM at the CRR of Paris in 2014. In December 2014, she won the first prize in the Violoncellenseine competition. In the same time, she is admitted to the CNSMD of Lyon in the class of Anne Gastinel and Edouard Sapey Triomphe. It was there that she met the violinist Houcheng Kian, with whom she founded the Orphée duo. Together, they won first prize at the Leopold Bellan International Competition in April 2016. In July 2016, she took part in the Music in D festival academy where she performed as a soloist in Brahms' double concerto. In May 2017, she won the "best talent" prize at the Auvergne/Rhône-Alpes classical talent competition, which enabled her to perform as a soloist in the Saint-Saëns concerto with the orchestra of "la fabrique opéra". She also studied the sonata repertoire with pianists Vincent Forestier and Adrien Irankhah. In June 2020 she obtained her master's degree at the Lyon CNSMD with honours.

New portrait for BCN valors afegits: David de las Heras /  by Toni Ricart

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David welcomes me in the studio he shares with other artists in Torrent de las Flors street, in the Gracia district of Barcelona. Observing his work space, one can guess that he is organized, perfectionist and meticulous: everything that is required by the impeccable technique of his illustrations, which he sketches with acrylic to finish them in oil, a quite unusual procedure in illustration. With a slow and gentle voice, he tells me about the artist's honesty, about his career as a painter, about how one day, tired of a certain hypocrisy that reigns in the art market, he moved away from official channels to continue creating his most personal work, which makes him happier and allows him to survive emotionally. At the same time, he earns his living by making illustrations, especially for the publishing sector. And I have to say that both his personal and commercial work is of exceptional quality, and faithfully reflects the discreet sincerity of its author.
David de las Heras has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country, and graduated from the Illustration cycle at the Escola Massana in Barcelona. His work as a painter has been exhibited in different European countries as well as in galleries in many cities around the country. As an illustrator he has published several books, together with the texts of Arianna Squilloni or recently illustrating the book of the writer Julio Llamazares Atllas de la España imaginaria. He has also specialized in book covers, among all of them the cover he made for Instrumental by the pianist James Rhodes and the cover awarded as the best of 2015 in the Junceda awards for the book Kalimán en Jericó by Àngel Burgas. His work has also been published in newspapers such as El País, in the cultural supplement of ABC, and on several covers of El País Semanal.

David de las Heras web site