Meet Artur Ponsà

Today we’d like to introduce you to Artur Ponsà.

For this reason, these last three years I have become very close to Black American Music, thanks to my mentor Michael League, who has put me directly into this music source and made me discover, learn and know many great music and musicians with Afro-American roots. So I decided I do wanted to study in the USA, as close as possible to Afro-American music, something that has been difficult during my years in Barcelona. I applied for Berklee College of Music in Boston and they gave me a full-tuition merit scholarship, which made this dream come true and made me feel very confident and strong, ready to initiate this next step in my career. This next September I’m moving from Barcelona to Boston, thrilled to embrace new opportunities and share my music with people from around the world.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I think we musicians are like elite athletes. Every athlete gives his own soul in every training and competition and so we do. In this way, no road can be easy but it’s because we love and enjoy what we practice, compose or play that the road can be smooth. In any case, we might not consider the music path as rough. Athletes and musicians know perfectly that they cannot achieve anything without hours of training, but their passion and ambition for what they love to do is greater than anything else, and that makes the road smoother. Personally, I’ve learned that music demands discipline, hours of understanding what we want to express through our instrument, like a classical pianist who’s trying to perform a Haydn’s sonata in the same way as its composer would do, or like a jazz saxophonist that is improvising through “All the things you are” trying to create the most beautiful melodies each time they pass through the same chords. I believe it’s about respect for the music we play, its history and its composers. It’s never about us; it’s always about music.

Sometimes I might came across with some struggles related to how I wanted to sound, to express my feelings through my instrument, to find my own voice, learning and transcribing music words but trying to speak for me, not for others… But that never blocked me or stopped me to keep doing this research which actually is about knowing yourself better. I believe this is beautiful and I’m still on it, and I hope I’ll never be tired of exploring, that this childish curiosity will always remain with me.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
In my last year in Liceu, I stumbled upon a great album called “Djabote”, a live recording of sabar compositions composed and directed by Doudou N’Diaye Rose, a Wolof griot percussionist from Senegal, master of the wolof instrument called sabar. This album blew my mind and I started to do some research and study about it: that’s how I met Oumar Ngom, a great percussionist from Senegal who lives in Barcelona. I began taking lessons with him and later on, when I graduated from Liceu, he invited me to join him in his winter stay in Dakar in order to study directly from the source the great language of Sabar. That was the greatest experience in my life. I lived and learned with the Ngom family, one of the most popular griot families that play sabar, and join them in every gig in Dakar, which happened almost every day. Their rhythmic skills are simply ridiculous and every time I heard the Wolof percussionists playing sabar (which happened in the street where everybody could come and dance for a life celebration), I immediately smiled and my heart started to beat faster, something that those passionate about rhythm might not be able to describe. After this huge experience, I began to investigate how to adapt and arrange sabar’s language into my instrument, the drums, which is something I think it’s beautiful and specially meaningful to me.

Since I traveled for the first time to Senegal, I’m incorporating Sabar’s rhythmic language into modern drums, trying to fill my musical voice with new rhythmic expressions that are already part of my rhythmic vocabulary. Regarding my playing with other musicians, I would like to be considered as a sensitive drummer, a sincere musician who always cares about fresh ways to express himself through drums and who plays not only with his limbs but also with his ears. A drummer with a strong opinion who enjoys to listen, collaborate and interact with others.

Any big plans?
In a few years, I’d be glad to work as a sideman involved in the music I love, being able to participate and choose those projects I do want to be involved in. As a leader, I would like to consolidate KIW, the band I co-lead with two great friends and musicians, Pau Jorba and Ferran Rico, based on original compositions that combine live jazz with electronic music and loops.

Also, I’d like to obtain great and satisfactory results developing Sabar’s language into the drums and share them not only through a hypothetical new personal project but also in many recordings and solo performances. I hope my sound will express the beauty of sabar, all that joyful work behind and especially the vast and well-deserved respect for this ancient Wolof tradition, which I will do my best to preserve.

Finally, for me it’s very important to make the audience feel involved in my performance and to create a conversation with them. I believe we have to take advantage of how music can affect human beings, of how powerful art can be in order to improve our society. So I do believe would try to collaborate and work with Catalan musicians in order to affect Catalonia’s jazz scene, building a solid community that protects and helps our rights, values, and work conditions.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @tuurpo__
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artur.ponsa
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@arturponsa2366/featured

Image Credits
@dbretonescontreras @zeta_black @mcanostel