Kebyart, a saxophone quartet with "a lot of energy and a lot of passion"

BarcelonaThe uniqueness helped them, but it is determination, study, creativity and good work that has consolidated a project as unique as the Kebyart saxophone quartet. They have been playing together for ten years, since they met at the Esmuc, and in this time they have achieved goals such as premiering new works by composers such as Jörg Widmann and David Philip Hefti and working with a very wide repertoire that ranges from Bach to Héctor Parra. And now they are immersed in a tour with concerts in Paris, Rome, Liechtenstein, Heidelberg and Basel, among other cities. "We give more concerts abroad than here," says Pere Méndez (L'Ametlla de Mar, 1995), one of the members of the quartet that is completed by Daniel Miguel Guerrero (Constantí, 1993), Robert Seara (Barcelona, ​​​​1995) and Víctor Serra (Barcelona, ​​​​1995). Kebyart, by the way, comes from a Balinese word meaning "to burst or suddenly open up."

"The fact that we have gone international may seem very glamorous, but it is necessary to be able to make our work sustainable and make a living from giving concerts," explains Méndez. "This has been possible thanks to the support of L'Auditori and the Palau de la Música, with a lot of work that we know how to take advantage of the resources that we know how to take advantage of the resources that we used as certain springboards that other groups or singers do have to reach certain agents and promoters." Obviously, nothing would have happened without the quality that the Kebyarts demonstrate in each project and in each concert. And the rigor with which they place the sound of the saxophone both in newly created pieces and in works that were written when the instrument did not even exist, because it was invented in 1840. "We play a modern instrument, but when we play a piece from the 18th century, by Mozart or Bach, we want to imagine how they would have written it."

"We do like contact with the composers who write for us," adds Victor Serra. In this sense, there is a fundamental turning point in the quartet's career: when Jörg Widmann wrote 7 whim for the Kebyarts. "He is a reference composer not only in Europe, but throughout the world, and that allowed us to put ourselves on the map a little and for other prestigious composers to take us more seriously. In addition, Jörg, in a sublime way, has condensed a way of doing a lot of Kebyart so that this piece brings together tradition and the 'a'.

There is an anecdote that illustrates the character of this quartet that has continued its training at the Musik-Akademie in Basel. "We started making transcriptions for saxophones after finding errors when comparing Ligeti's manuscript of the Music receded English:by Ligeti for piano and the six pieces he arranged for wind quintet and the edition published by a well-known publisher —explains Méndez—. We couldn't play it and play pieces with mistakes. This was in 2014." And since then the Kebyart's priority has been to make the arrangements themselves.

In those founding times it was difficult to find references because, as Seara remembers, "the European saxophone quartets were not fully dedicated to concert activity", which is what life is, and when we were discovering incredible music, we only had the saxophone in our hands and perhaps it was too late to start studying violin or another instrument —relates Daniel Miguel Guerrero—. In the end, we did not want to give up being able to play incredible music because of having very primarily chosen an instrument like the saxophone." On this path they had an unavoidable reference for so many Catalan formations: the Cuarteto Casals, a string quartet. "Casals and other string quartets that we admire like Even, Bel. , making a saxophone quartet is the same as making a string quartet, in the sense that there are four people, each one has a voice and the four of them build a discourse together. It was very easy to reflect ourselves in the string quartet, although afterwards, obviously, we have sought our own path," says Seara.

The path that the Kebyard quartet travels also has discographic results such as Accents (Columna, 2027), with works by Brotons, Ligeti, Webern, Parra and Bartók; Different readings (Linn Records 2022), which tackled pieces such as the ballet suite Pulcinella by Stravinsky and the Peter Eötvös quartet that gives the album its title; and Dream of the Youth (Linn Records, 2023), the album that includes the 7 whim by Jörg Widmann, as well as works by Bach and Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn. And soon Linn Records will publish Unraveled. Homage to Maurice Ravel.

The shadow of jazz

On the disk Different readings, the Kebyards included a version of Take this waltz Leonard Cohen. "To get ahead of things that they might ask us to do. It was an encore for one of our seasons, but we wanted to go a step further and give a very imaginative version of a very well-known piece," says Méndez, who, however, admits that this foray into the realm of authorial pop is anecdotal. For them, "a rule" that they have imposed on themselves is much more relevant: to commission two or three new compositions for saxophone quartet every year, an instrument, by the way, very well known in jazz. "If we were a string quartet there would be a more determined idea of what we should do, but it still happens that some promoters ask us to play jazz. It is a constant battle between our artistic ambition and the proposals of some promoters who make these requests because they have a somewhat old-fashioned point of view and a lack of confidence." Fortunately.

Confidence begins with oneself. "We have always been very serious about what we do, whether we were preparing a competition, a chamber audition at Esmuc or a concert for a civic centre," says Méndez. "But ten years ago I think we were not able to imagine where we would end up, because back then we did not have so many references: there were not so many references. In some way, we have been discovering the path and getting to know the possibilities we had while building the future through a very well-organised present and above all with a lot of passion. We are people with a lot of energy and a lot of passion, and we always try to channel it to achieve what we dream of." So far, ten successful years for the Kebyart.