Jorge Coulon of Inti Illimani for Olmué: “I regret that a festival ends depending on whether tv wants to do it or not”

Although during the peak of the pandemic they performed two concerts via streaming, several online broadcasts, workshops and even productions from home, the founder of Inti Illimani, Jorge Coulon, confesses that they are tired of so much virtuality and are eager to meet again with the applause of the public. The emblematic national group will close this 2021 of vaccinations and deconfinement with four concerts at the Nescafé Theater of the Arts of Santiago on December 27, 28, 29 and 30. A show that they baptized ReVuelta, making a play on words between the return to live shows and the climate that the country is experiencing after October 2019.” We have made extensive use of this technology, which on the one hand has saved us, but on the other hand has us all a little tired,” says Coulon. “And that’s also what the concert is about, to meet again personally with the music, to return to that wonderful feeling of finishing a song and feeling the response of the audience,” he adds. “We did two big concerts by streaming but it was very rare that we finished the songs and there was like a void in the audience,” he adds. Although he explains that they have just begun to reactivate their concert schedule, the musician anticipates that they already have among their plans to set concerts in regions, and that they already have planned a tour in Italy for next March, their first date abroad after the pandemic. After 54 years of experience, what is the importance of continuing to travel, tour and concert? I think there are two things, one is that it is very rewarding to do so; and the other may sound a bit banal, but it’s what we know how to do, it’s our job, this work is like that. I was thinking the other day, from an interview about Serrat’s withdrawal from the stage, that I saw him as a ghost that at some point we will have to think about doing it. But Atahualpa Yupanqui, when asked if he was ever going to retire, he would say, “Do you know any retired poets?” One does not retire as a singer. Of course, there are circumstances that come to you and one has the shame not to end up giving grief, but as long as I have the energy, as long as I believe that I feel good and I enjoy doing it, I will continue. Now the group has for a while, those are decisions that we will have to make myself and Marcelo (Coulon), who are already over 70 years old. But the group enjoys good artistic health and of all kinds. I think of Patricio Manns, who until his last days did not lose hope of stepping on a stage again, what did his death mean for you who are part of the New Chilean song? Patricio Manns was until the last moment really thinking and planning activities. I think that’s the right thing to do, because in the end old age comes when you no longer have plans, when you only have memories. That’s why it’s important to stay alive, with projects. And it does not matter if those projects are not going to be completed by you, you are part of a community, you think about your family, your children, your grandchildren and those plans are like a kind of locomotive that drags this train, now that trains are fashionable ha. We are just resuming face-to-face rehearsals, and we are a group that decides everything quite democratically, we are just talking and working. But we do have a project that has no deadline, but we hope that hopefully 2022 will be completed, which is a symphonic work. It has been postponed due to all these circumstances but it is in our next plans. Sin OlmuéThe Huaso festival of Olmué is a stage that has received Inti Illimani several times. For the same reason, Jorge Coulon regrets the possibility that it will not be carried out for the second consecutive year, after the tender opened by the municipality for its production and transmission was deserted, because no channel made a proposal.” I regret that a festival that had no television when it started, ends up depending on whether television wants to or does not want to do it, “he says about it. “The St. Bernard Festival, for example, has never been televised and continues to be held every year. Then one might think that it would be fatal to be televised, because it would become dependent on television and if there is no television it would not be done. Olmué has been an important space for artists, so stop doing it because there is no television channel that sponsors it, it should make us review our priorities, “he says.

Original source in Spanish