"Spiritual flower for today". That is the business card of Jesús Mari "Pintu" Alegría. Give that phrase to your friends, each and every day of this health crisis, and with it the pill: "A musical pill, don't think," he jokes. Every day, since the state of alarm was decreed and with it the confinement of millions of people, he serves his friends a song. Ode to the toilet paper, the txistorra , loneliness or tango, and it does so that people feel better, boredom, sadness or whatever starting on friends and acquaintances, about 200 in Europe , America and Asia, open a gap to the smile.
“The son of the painter from Araia” (Álava), hence his alias, started all this as a help manual to lessen the fears of a Sevillian friend who called him sad and afraid of what was coming, back in late February . There was already talk of confinement and fear was running freely. "He is a hypochondriac and it was about removing iron and helping him, and now there are more than 200 who receive the daily song", and among them many people related to music and human rights. Pintu has been weaving a network for several decades since the presidency of Musicians Without Borders, an organization that turns 25 in 2020. An activity that has led him to organize charity concerts and promote music as an instrument of solidarity in many conflict areas.
“Making a daily song is a gesture, something simple; I'm just trying to make people feel better, ”he says. He is a staunch defender of music as a magical element that unites people. The recipients of his songs are in the Basque Country, Madrid, Barcelona and the rest of Spain, in Cuba, Argentina, Georgia, and in Syria and Iraq. The recipients of their actions too. Pintu has launched a network of solidarity music projects with Musicians Without Borders, in Kanasore (Iraq) teaching music to Kurdish women victims of ISIS, and in Syria to Kurdish children. In 2019 they brought the latter a ton of instruments in person, avoiding all kinds of administrative and political difficulties. "Music changes people, and human rights are an instrument," he plays with words.
This year they have had to postpone several presentations, one of them in Madrid. “Federico Mayor Zaragoza, and the professor at the Madrid Conservatory Teresa Catalán were invited. I ate with Federico last year, it was a gift, "he recalls. The man who was director general of Unesco and author of the book Crime of Silence among others wants to give them a violin, explains Jesús Mari.
But they don't stop there. Musicians Without Borders is going to open in Vitoria a school for refugees assisted by the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR) or by Caritas who cannot afford a regulated musical training and the costs that come with it. They already have the instruments, six teachers ready for when the confinement is lifted and even the premises. "A lady gave it to us who listened to the project on the radio and liked it," he says. "The Vitoria school will be called Tximurka (" pinch "in Basque) and will be a sister to those in Syria, which is called Mirzo & Music Center, and in Iraq."
But, in addition, they are promoting projects in Guatemala, in Morocco and are working to close a charity concert by the UN Orchestra with the common thread of "human rights to hype", with which several others have already organized in recent years. years. At a conference he gave a few years ago, Pintu defined music as "a weapon of massive construction." Each of his songs is a "peace projectile".
Read more blogging topics and follow us on Flipboard.