Benet Casablancas: "The best prize is that the music is played"

Barcelona"The best award is that the music is played, but, obviously, I really appreciate the awards. And this one makes me very excited because the surprise was tremendous," explains composer Benet Casablancas (Sabadell, 1959). The award in question is the XX SGAE Award for Ibero-American Music Tomás Luis de Victoria, which he will receive on May 26 at the Manuel de Falla hall at the SGAE headquarters in Madrid. "Welcome. We will try to be up to the task," he says during a conversation in which unforgettable memories appear, such as "the fabulous" recording of Seven Scenes from Hamlet with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with a juicy and quite significant anecdote about a phantom verse; the meeting with George Benjamin in the glorious days of the Teatre Lliure Chamber Orchestra in the early nineties, and, further back, "the small orchestra" that Casablancas put together "as a youngster" and with which he performed the central nocturne of Vistas al mar, by Eduard Toldrà, in front of Frederic Mompou, Xavier Montsalvatge, and Xavier Turull, "a moment when the history of Catalan music passed through Sabadell".

And from the past to the present, because 2026 is a very prolific year for Casablancas: in March, the premiere in the United States (in San Francisco) of Quadern de Haikus; in April, the premiere of Albrícias y diferencias para órgano, in the tribute to Montserrat Torrent in Madrid; on June 6, the Concerto for Horn and Orchestra No. 2 performed by the Franz Schubert Filharmonia and Stefan Dohr at the Palau de la Música, and on June 15, Cal·ligrafies, a commission from violinist Anna Urbina that will premiere at the Ateneu Barcelonès. That is, a good example of the formal versatility of the composer of the opera L'enigma di Lea.

The conversation also includes reflections on Felip Pedrell as the "inventor of Spanish music known in the world", as Pedrell was the teacher of Albéniz, Granados, and Falla. Reflections also on Viennese musical miscegenation, because "mixtures are good"; on initiatives that did not have the continuity they deserved; on efforts that do not yield results and lead us "to melancholy, if not to annoyance"; and on musical heritage, "which is only preserved if it is played". "Consider that when works are premiered, the heritage of the future is being built," warns the composer from Sabadell, who this year has also been appointed academician of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando.

The Tomás Luis de Victoria award recognizes "the unquestionable quality of Benet Casablancas' work, the ability to aesthetically appeal to the listener's emotions, the mastery of orchestration, academic merits, and contributions to musical culture". "I can only reciprocate awards in the best way I know how, which is by making the best music I can", says Casablancas, looking to "put things into perspective, as with reviews, because sometimes a review that isn't entirely favorable can be more enriching". But he doesn't hide his excitement for an award that in previous editions has been received by other Catalan composers such as "Xavier Montsalvatge, Joan Guinjoan, Josep Soler and Xavier Benguerel". At the award ceremony, the "laudatio will be read by musicologist Germán Gan, and in the second part of the event there will be a concert by pianist Juan Carlos Gravayo, clarinetist Joan Enric Lluna and cellist Salvador Bolón. On the repertoire, the delicate haikus from the Memorial Arraona (2024), the Estampas de Kwaidan (2023) and the absolute premiere of In modo di Saeta. Haiku para Cañizares y Mariko (2025). "It will be something nice", advances a composer who assures that he doesn't feel obsolete yet. "What fault is it of mine to be the oldest of the bunch", he says before advocating for intergenerational dialogue, "as the English do".

Casablancas, essential

when it was programmed at the Barbican in 2008. And that recording is now included on the compilation album Seven Scenes from Hamlet when it was programmed at the Barbican in 2008. And that recording is now included in the compilation album Casablancas. The essential collection (Columna Música, 2026), along with a collection of works performed by the London Sinfonietta, the Casals Quartet, the Diotima Quartet, and the Chamber Orchestra of the Teatre Lliure.

From the rehearsals in London of Seven Scenes from Hamlet he recalls a very curious anecdote about how well the public is regarded in the United Kingdom. "There was a character who one day approached me and said: 'Listen, in this passage there is a missing verse from Hamlet'. It must be an error.' And I told him no, that I had removed it expressly for dramaturgical reasons. And then he commented: 'Ah, very well, but do you know what happens? That listeners could call us warning us that a verse is missing.' The character in question was one of the heads of the BBC. It's not to make a bad comparison, but what would happen here if we skipped a verse by Verdaguer?" he explains.

Without leaving the English context, he recalls another anecdote about the first time the London Sinfonietta recorded a work by Casablancas. "We went to a church, and everything went very well. After three days of work, I thanked the sound technician and asked him if he could do me a favor. 'I know what you want to ask me: the recording of the first take. It's the best.' He was the technician who had recorded Britten's operas!"

Casablancas simultaneously conveys exultant enthusiasm and a serious demeanor when considering that things could be better. The compilation album closes with Celebració (a variation of the Patum de Berga), a work from 2001 performed by the Teatre Lliure Chamber Orchestra, the same ensemble that had premiered Set escenes de Hamlet (1989). "It was a brilliant concert, at the new Lliure venue just inaugurated at the Palau de l'Agricultura, in Montjuïc. And then everything went to hell," recalls Casablancas about the end of that orchestra created in 1985 by Josep Pons, Lluís Vidal and Jaume Cortadellas and promoted by Fabià Puigserver to create a stable music core at the Teatre Lliure. "The Lliure orchestra was very important for the cultural heartbeat of the city, and everyone knows who ruined it," says Casablancas. The ensemble disappeared when Àlex Rigola took over the direction of the theater in the 2002-2003 season. "The Teatre Lliure Chamber Orchestra had extraordinary musicians, and one of its great virtues was that there were people who came from jazz. They were very open and basically played the music they believed in, in very diverse styles and languages," he explains. Casablancas, as the jury of the Tomás Luis de Victoria prize recognizes, fully resonates with that spirit.