Joan Manuel Serrat receiving and thanking him for the award in Ovideo, Spain.
Retired from the stage since 2022, the singer-songwriter español Joan Manuel Serrat yesterday he performed his well-known song “Those Little Things“to thank the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts that he received.
YOUR TASTE
“I like to sing and write songs and I can’t find any other way to give them heartfelt thanks than by singing a song,” said the 80-year-old Catalan artist in his speech acceptance of the award, during the awards ceremony in Oviedo (Asturias, northern Spain), before launching into a performance of the piece accompanied by a young violinist.
AUTHOR OF HYMNS
The author of hymns like “Mediterranean“, “Para la Libertad” or “Tu Nombre Me Sabe a Hierba”, who introduced himself to the audience as “an older man looking like an old man”, especially thanked his wife, Candela Tiffón, for her unconditional support.
At the Campoamor Theater in Oviedo, “Those Little Things” was heard by the other winners of the night, such as the Spanish badminton figure Carolina Marínthe Romanian poet Ana Blandiana and the Canadian intellectual and former politician Michael Ignatieff, as well as the Kings of Spain and their daughters, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía, along with the other guests, such as the singers Ana Belén and Víctor Manuel and the actress Candela Serrat and her sister María, daughters of the honoree.
CULTURAL WEALTH
The singer and composer was awarded the Princess of Asturias for combining “the art of poetry and the music at the service of tolerance, values shared interests, the richness of the diversity of languages and cultures, as well as a necessary desire for freedom”.
“I confess that I am not satisfied or comfortable with the world and with the time that I had to live recently. We live in a contaminated, hostile, unsupportive time, where values democratic and moral principles have been replaced by the greed of the market and where everything has a price,” declared the musician, emphatically, in his speech.
MULTIPREMIADO
Exiled for some time in Mexico for criticizing the Franco regimeadds the Princess of Asturias to her appointment as Goodwill Ambassador from Unicef or numerous recognitions such as the Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso Autonomous University of Mexico and the University of Costa Rica.
Serrat, whose discography main album covers more than 30 albums with songs in Spanish or Catalan, and also popular for songs such as “Hoy Podemos Ser Un Gran Día”, “Cantares” or “Penelope”, he ended a career of almost 60 years with a world tour in 2022 titled El Vicio de Cantar.
PREVIOUS WINNERS
- Meryl Streep
- Frank Gehry
- Ennio Morricone
- John Williams
- Woody Allen
- Marina Abramovic
- Martin Scorsese
- Francis Ford Coppola
