Sergi Carbonell: "My mother's death was the first great lesson in love."

Eight years ago, during the time Sergi Carbonell was playing with Txarango, the Catalan group received an email from an NGO working with adolescents in Uganda, asking for permission to sing one of their songs from the heart. "They were working on psychological wounds and doing it through music," explains the musician. Txarango was delighted and replied that they wanted to know more about the project. They met with the NGO coordinator, Almudena, and it didn't take long for Carbonell to fall in love.

"I met her and I was amazed. I was amazed by her strength, her magnetism, and her kindness," explains the musician. The opportunities to meet kept happening, and now it's been seven years since they married in India. "It was quite improvised, without guests. We were there on a trip and we walked the streets looking for tailors to dress us. We celebrated the wedding in the middle of the Hindu ceremonies that are held at night by the Ganges, with offerings and flowers. We had dinner in a beautiful place with views of the river and people congratulated us, it was very nice," Carbonell recalls.

From Almudena, the musician says, he has learned "to love with capital letters, to give oneself to the other person and to put kindness at the center." This last concept is explored on the album Loving kindness (record label), which Carbonell defines in the Buddhist sense: "If you are kind, you can't just be kind to your family and those close to you; you must be kind to all living beings. Neuroscientist Richard Davison's studies show that a healthy brain is a kind brain," explains Carbonell.

Carbonell explains that the musician's first great lesson in love was the death of his mother when he was 14. "I learned to love the fleetingness of life and to know that everything is in constant change. I think it's good to love change and try to embrace it, and not run away from pain. We live in a society that is in a hurry and tries to get rid of certain emotions, but there are processes that are necessary when you are going to feel me when you are in pain, and to allow yourself to feel what is there, as an alchemical process that allows me to transform pain into beauty," he concludes.