The singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serratwith more than 50 years of career and author of Mediterraneanconsidered one of the best songs in Spanish music of all time, has been distinguished this Wednesday with the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts 2024.
Serrat (Barcelona, ​​1943) has recorded more than 500 songs, more than 40 albums and has set music to the verses of the greatest poets in Spanish, such as Antonio Machado, Miguel Hernández, Neruda, Benedetti, Alberti, Lorca or León Felipe.
Author of hits like Penelope, Love words either To each his own theme, Serrat announced his retirement from the stage in 2021 with the tour The vice of singing 1965-2022which closed with a memorable performance at the Palau San Jordi in Barcelona on December 27, 2022.
Serrat was a pioneer of the Catalan Nova Canço and a prominent voice against the repression and injustices of the Franco regime, which earned him arrests, fines and even exile in Mexico for a year, but also the protagonist of the scandal that entailed his resignation from singing at the festival Eurovision in 1968 for not being able to sing in Catalan The, the, the with which he won Massiel doing it in Spanish.
This composer, poet and also actor had been proposed on many occasions for the Princess of Asturias Award for the Artsan award that last year went to the actress Meryl Streep and to which this year more than 50 applications had been submitted.
Arts, the first of eight awards
The one of the Arts, the first of eight awards which the Princess of Asturias Foundation convenes each year in failing, is intended to distinguish “the work of creation, cultivation and improvement of architecture, cinematography, dance, sculpture, photography, music, painting, theater and other artistic manifestations”.
Figures such as filmmakers have also received this award. Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, Michael Haneke and Pedro Almodovarthe musicians Paco de Lucia, Bob Dylan or JoaquÃn Rodrigo, the architects Norman Foster, Frank Gehry or Rafael Moneo, or, more recently, the singer Carmen Linares, the dancer MarÃa Pagés and the artist of performance Marina Abramovic.
After the Arts award, the next few weeks will see the awards for Communication and HumanitiesApril 30; SportsMay 8; social SciencesMay 15; Lettersthe 23rd of the same month; International cooperationthe 29th; Scientific and Technical ResearchJune 5, and finally, Concordon June 12, as announced this Friday by the Princess of Asturias Foundation.
The Princess of Asturias Awards, which reach their 44th edition and for those who have presented themselves this year 321 applications from 55 nationalitiesare intended to distinguish those people or institutions that contribute with their work and merits in the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanitarian areas to progress and social well-being in an extraordinary and exemplary manner.
Last year’s winners were Meryl Streep (Arts), Nuccio Ordine (Communication and Humanities), Hélène Carrère d’Encausse (Social Sciences), Eliud Kipchoge (Sports), Haruki Murakami (Letters), Medicines for Neglected Diseases Initiative (International Cooperation ), Jeffrey Gordon, E. Peter Greenberg and Bonnie L. Bassler (Scientific and Technical Research) and Mary”s Meals (Concordia).
The Princess of Asturias Awards ceremony will be heldAs is traditional, in the month of October in a solemn ceremony presided over by the kings at the Campoamor Theater in Oviedo, accompanied by the Princess Eleanor and the Infanta Sofia.
Each Princess of Asturias Award is endowed with the reproduction of a sculpture Joan Miro -representative symbol of the award-, an accrediting diploma, a badge and the cash amount of 50,000 euros.
