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Susana Seivane
Galician bagpipe sensation
Susana Seivane represents a new generation of traditional musicians in her native
land. The often-dubbed "Charming ambassador of the Galician bagpipe"
was born into the most prestigious piping family in Galicia and has been playing
pipes since she was 3 years old. Joyful and vibrant, Susana Seivane has achieved
widespread international recognition with her astonishing talent and enthusiasm.
Celtia.info: The Seivanes, the most prestigious piping family
in Galicia. Your grandfather plays bagpipes, your father plays bagpipes, your
uncle plays bagpipes... Did you ever have a choice?
Susana Seivane is one of the best known Galician musicians and has performed
in concerts all over the world. - Photo © Susana
Seivane | | Susana
Seivane: The love of bagpipes is in the blood. My dad Alvaro and my grandad
Xosé Manuel Seivane are both pipers. I've definitely got my love for the
bagpipes from them. When you are born as a Seivane you just have to accept that
you are going to be surrounded by bagpipes, and I actually loved bagpipes when
I was a child, it was always my favourite toy. On my fourth birthday, my dad,
my uncle Xosé Manuel and my grandad gave me my first bagpipe as a present,
which I still have as one of my most cherished memories. It was a small bagpipe,
but I played it in a way that everyone who visited the Seivane workshop was really
surprised.
That’s the way I started playing together with the traditional
pipers from the ‘old school’, and that was actually something pretty
exciting to them as well because they saw themselves playing together with a very
young girl. I had the opportunity to live wonderful moments with those masters
who are considered as the pillars of the Galician traditional bagpipe, I'm talking
about pipers like Ricardo Portela or Moxenas. They all encouraged me to improve,
they gave me good advices and great laughters –they were very witty. I was
just happy playing my pipe, it has always been in my blood. I've always been fascinated
about that instrument. I wanted to be a piper and my family just loved it!
Susana Seivane is widely known across the Celtic music scene and
the critics are saying that you are the best female piper ever. Do you think that
the bagpipe is still a male-dominated instrument?
Well, in the old
days there were actually many female pipers -true, not as many as men, but there
were, nevertheless. In those times it wasn’t accepted for a woman to play
bagpipes, perhaps due to the prejudices of a male-dominated society, so that’s
the reason many of them remained anonymous. However, women played a vital role
in Galician culture as songs and tales were transmitted orally from generation
to generation and women did that through singing and playing the Galician tambourine,
the Pandeireta. And in fact, the very first pipe band in Galicia was a
women's pipe band! The band was created in Ribadeo in 1955, and was called Saudade.
My grandad told me that right after they learnt about those female pipers they
went to see them and they actually liked them, they were quite popular at the
time.
Nowadays it's rather common to see women playing pipes in folk bands
or in pipe bands, but it's not common yet to see them going solo and getting many
records on the market as it is in my case. I don’t really know why this is
that way, I assume that perhaps it is because the music industry in general is
not ready for this yet but I’m sure that this will happen one day, and I
hope so because in Galicia we have a good bunch of excellent female pipers. I
personally love Guadi Galego and Magoia Bodega, and they are both close friends
of mine. Today, there’s an equal number of men and women playing bagpipes
in Galicia and I have never been discriminated at all, on the contrary, I’ve
been very lucky that I am liked by the so called traditionalists, that's
something that makes me very proud. In any case, I believe that music does not
care about whether you are a woman or a man.
You have played with
old-school Galician bagpipe legends such as Ricardo Portela and Moxenas. Is there
any difference between the way they played and the way the Galician pipe is played
today?
My
grandad always tells that bagpipes are played differently in the north and in
the south of Galicia, both in style and in the tunes they play. I think that today
we could say that there are lots of different styles in Galicia because we are
much more in contact with other cultures, both for the good and for the bad. There
are some pipers who tend to follow the Irish or the Scottish style of playing
and there are others –that’s where I consider myself to be- who take
as a role model our own pipers: Ricardo Portela, Moxenas, Milladoiro, my grandad,
Os Gaiteiros de Soutelo, etc. I was friends with Ricardo and Moxenas, they liked
me a lot and they used to call me Susaniña (little Susana), and
Moxenas even composed a song for me called Agachadiña (the small
one). I personally love the way the bagpipe is played in Ireland and in Scotland,
but on the other hand I think that I have to play the way the bagpipe is played
in my own country. I've always looked up at our own traditional pipers, the way
they played has inspired me greatly.
What about the aesthetics of
Galician traditional music? Shall we stereopype about bearded men and militant
politics or can we say that the bagpipe is on its way to become a sexy
instrument in Galicia?
Just
a bit of both, I suppose. There’s lots of young people today who are into
keeping our culture and traditions alive and many of us are lucky to work professionally
on that. We mix our music with masses of different styles, we are young, and we
just look ‘different’; so that’s an evolution, both in aesthetics
like in the musical style. My generation now appears on TV and in other media.
I think that you obviously become involved with your national culture from the
very moment you start playing an instrument like the bagpipe, but that doesn’t
necessarily mean that you are straight into politics.
Taking the
Irish as an example, do you think that the next step forward for Galician folk
music is to target the radio charts and start pulling crowds of teenagers as The
Corrs did with their happy pop-folk sound?
Yes, I'd really love to
see folk music on the most popular music charts. I personally loved the boom of
The Corrs, many young people over here discovered Irish music through them, and
possibly many of those started liking that kind of music and went on to discover
great artists such as Sharon Shannon or Four Men and a Dog.
In my own
case something similar happened when the Spanish radio station Cadena 100
started promoting my last record Mares de Tempo, making it possible for
my music to reach many young people all around Spain. However, this doesn't happen
always that easily. If you want any large media to back you up you really need
to have either good contacts or a multinational behind you supporting your record
with lots of money.
Susana Seivane playing with Brittany's Bagad Kemper - Photo © Roberto
Grandal | | Your
international career has taken you to perform on Celtic festivals and stages all
over the world. Have you been networking with other Celtic musicians?
Indeed, we actually spend most of our time playing outside Spain. Being on
the front cover of the Folk Roots Magazine five years ago was very important for
my international career; I started playing at many festivals in Europe and in
America with great success, meeting many important artists who I have always admired,
and playing or recording songs together with many of them, for example Milladoiro,
Kepa Junkera, Rodrigo Romaní, Tony Mc Manus, Shooglenifty, Alasdair Fraser
(on his show Sky Dance), Dulce Pontes, Rory Campbell, Michael Mc Gloldrick,
Orquestra Sinfónica de Galicia, Chango Espasiuk, Bagad Kemper (I played
on their last record Sud ar Su), and many, many others. I've had unforgettable
and very enriching moments with them, they are all great artists.
It
is not very common for Galician bands to undertake strong promotional campaigns
in the American market. How important are going to be the US and other non-European
markets to your marketing strategy?
I couldn’t tell, to be honest.
I suppose that the American market –most particularly the US- is very important.
We went to the US on tour in 2002 and it just worked right for us. In 2003 we
went to play to Buenos Aires representing the Galician government and it was a
fantastic experience because the place was fully packed with Galician-Argentinians.
My records are sold in many countries around Europe and also in the USA, and the
truth is that sales are going rather well considering the type of music I play.
In any case, I don’t pay much importance to sales, I mean, yes, it’s
kind of important, but it doesn’t make me lose my sleep. I just enyoy playing
and love seeing that people like what I do, that’s it.
What
is keeping you busy at the moment? Are you working on any projects for the future?
I
have recently joined Brittany’s Bagad Kemper on tour and I have also several
other projects on the pipeline, including some filming for TV and cinema, but
I can’t tell much about this because it’s just a project at the moment
and we don’t know where’s all this going to end up. I’m also working
on our 2005 tour, which we are starting in February in Copenhagen, Denmark, and
is going to take us to many festivals around Europe, most particularly in France,
where we’ve been very successful.
In the near future, I would like
to keep playing my bagpipe but of course that depends on the public, I’ll
be there as long as the audience like my work. I’m optimistic, though.. I've
made many fans ;-) who I believe will keep on supporting me so I can keep on releasing
new records and keep working in this job, which is definitely my true passion.
Thanks
and good luck Susana.
Interview
by Anjo Abelaira | December 2004
Do
you want to know more about Susana Seivane?
» Visit Susana
Seivane's official website:
http://www.susanaseivane.com/
»
Susana Seivane at The
Celtic Shop > Music > Folk > Galicia:
Together with Carlos
Núñez, Susana Seivane represents the new young blood of Gallegan
music. Her debut album was produced by Rodrigo Romani of the Gallegan supergroup
Milladoiro. | | |
Ireland / Scotland / Mann / Wales / Cornwall / Brittany / Galicia / World