Andreu Gallén: “Creating a musical demands time, essay and error”

An Olympic Barcelona, ​​a childhood that is broken and a soundtrack to remember everything. All children grow up is the new musical ofAndreu Gallénan emotional look at childhood and over time. The record has already released, but it will be on July 14 at the Condal Theater, within the Greek festival, when the viewer will discover the live soul. We talk to him about this artistic journey.

Barcelona Theater: This project is born of a personal need?

Andreu Gallen: There is one thing that is really difficult to write musical theater: you can do great music, but if the text or the staging fails, all fails. Ask for a lot of time, rehearsal and error. I wanted to do a project without having this pressure. In the Condal theater we will see a version that may be definitive or maybe not.

But is your goal going further?

Yes, this could be a production, but I must confess that if you stay only on a record and with the concert, I will also be very happy. Because what I really wanted was to publish a record with these songs.

In the end, it is so difficult to create a new musical that is so much where to start?

One of the things that musical theater has is that it demands high production costs, even if it is medium production, and this makes it much more difficult to reach the end.

“The creators who want to do musical theater, we are entrepreneurs of ourselves”

Is it a luxury to have the freedom to write a musical that you like?

The creators, in a lot, or at least those who want to do musical theater, are businessmen of ourselves. It is very strange that the projects are made on request. Luckily I have the role of music director, which allows me to do this double working life. The disc of All children grow up I started recording just after finishing the tour of Chicago. I was exhausted, but happy because I am excited and the team we created is supermaco. Apart from working with my usual friends, theIvan LabandaLa Mercè Martínez and the Jordi VidalI have met three spectacular talents that are the Berta Rabascallthe Lluís Rubio and l ‘Ivan Clementethat we have found them through an audition.

How did the creation go with your brother Martí Gallén to the booklet?

I had the intuition that I wanted to do a musical that spoke of childhood. There is a movie that excites me, Counts on me ((Rob Reiner1986), on the breaking of the innocence of some teenagers. My brother and I have grown culturally breastfeeding the same and he knows a lot of theater and studied dramaturgy and asked him to create a story together.

And did you spend the music at David Pintó and he made you the lyrics?

In some song of this musical it has happened so because I already had a created material that has served as a starting point, but it is strange to do this in this way. One thing I really like to work with a lyricist is that there is a pull-and-pull, that verses can be modified, other than a poem that nothing can be changed. Let all the ego’s barriers fall. Be very free to achieve the best song possible.

“I’m very curious to know how people receive the musical”

By the way, let me say that the lyrics of this musical are very adults.

I am very curious about how people receive the musical because we are not used to Catalonia either that the audience knows a musical through music without knowing the story and creates their own inner adventure, and he will discover it on the day of the concert.

When there was no internet we discovered a musical only through the record.

And I, as a musician, had a lot of Broadway scores and the first relationship I had with many musicals was with the piano, musicals that I ended up seeing on stage and thought, “What does this melody sound like?”

But in the Anglo -Saxon world it is more common for shows to be born first in the form of concept album.

Yes, without going any further Hamilton When the idea of Lin-Manuel Miranda was that he was a concept albumor Andrew Lloyd Webber with Jesus Christ Superstar. That is why I wanted that, if maybe only the music will be left of this musical, at least that it was very well recorded and that people can take it forever.

What has the Olympic Barcelona that you have placed as a backdrop in this story?

It’s one of my first memories. I was five years old. I remember very well the energy and white color of the Olympics, the changes of the city … and in wanting to make a current story in parallel with another previous story I liked this framework.

The sound of the musical gives off something nostalgic, is it?

There is a point, but it is not very sad. Obviously, there is something of admiration in those nineties so ninety, the process of discovering things (without the internet) was very beautiful.

“One of the metaphors we use is the myth of Peter Pan, the child who never gets great.”

Is there a point of sadness, then?

There are in the character of Peter (Ivan Labanda), that when I was small (Iván Clemente) He suffered a traumatic event during the inauguration of the Barcelona 92 ​​Olympic Games. A fact that suddenly causes him to lose innocence. One of the metaphors we use is the myth of Peter Pan, the child who never gets great.

What characters are there?

The story of 1992 has three friends, including a girl who will not grow older. The plot is moving forward until 2022, where we see that who had been volunteer at the Olympic Games is now a seer that is called Nieves (Mercè Martínez), which helps to link the characters of the present and the past. The argument focuses on Peter, both young and adult, childhood friend and daughter (Berta Rabascall).

Where did you find inspiration?

It is clear that Sondheim It is always there, not for the style of music, but because he is the best musical theater creator in history. I have a photo of her on the piano so that she always tells me things.

What will we see on the day of the concert at the Condal Theater?

A concert version of a musical, without scenery or costume, but we will try to do it as aesthetic as possible to understand the story well. I have asked theAriadna Peya Put poetry, that his gaze serves to organize the movement of scenes and songs.

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