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Marwán turned the Serenates Festival into a party

  • University Culture Service
  • June 27th, 2024
Marwán at the Serenates Festival 2024.
Marwán at the Serenates Festival 2024.

On 26 June, songwriter Marwán performed at the Serenates Festival to present his concert Canciones para una urgencia of the 20 years in music tour. The concert lasted almost two hours, and he went through his main hits, such as Cómo hacer que vuelvas (How to make you come back), Necesito un país (I need a country), La vida cuesta (Life is hard), Mi paracaídas (My parachute), Las cosas que no puede responder (The unanswered things) or 5 gramos de resentimiento (5 grams of resentment).

Marwán, one of the most important singer-songwriters in Spain and Latin America, enjoyed himself and made everyone enjoy themselves. He is totally dedicated to his music and his audience. Marwán moved comfortably in the cloister, singing among the public, playing the guitar and rapping. In this anniversary album he collaborates with IzalMiguel PóvedaFunambulista, Andrés Suarez and the rapper Nach. Nevertheless, at the CCCC, he was accompanied during the Serenates concert by his partisans, who sang his chorus and cheered him on. And when the bonic fell short, the rebonic came along.

The live performance will go down in the annals of the Serenates. The poet-singer (or singer-poet, because Marwán is both) won over the audience, while sharing his intimacies, always with humour, because music heals, even when it comes to heartbreak, the leitmotif of his lyrics. There were some moments of chaos, such as when he performed Pensábamos que el amor era solo una fiesta (We believed love was just a party), an original song produced for this album. And there were also moments of social commitment.

Marwán is the son of a Palestinian refugee, and was able to study in Spain thanks to a UNRWA scholarship for Palestinian refugees, as he recalled during the concert. He also condemned ‘the genocide’ suffered by his people. The title of this compilation album, Canciones para una urgencia (Songs for an emergency), draws attention to this reality. One of the new songs he gave to the audience at the end of the concert was Nana para una urgencia (Lullaby for an emergency), written in October, the earnings of which will go to UNRWA’s humanitarian work in Gaza, because ‘a song is only 1€’, as the singer-songwriter says.

The Palestinian singer was born in Madrid in 1979, and has been named ‘Músico por la Paz’ by the European Parliament. Together with other musicians and culture public personalities, he has also shown his support to the university movement against the war in the Middle East. Throughout his career he has given more than a hundred benefit concerts for this cause.

At the beginning of June, during the presentation of the Serenates Festival, co-produced by the Universitat de València and the IVC, UV’s Principal Maria Vicenta Mestre (who attended the Marwán concert), and the General Director for Culture Sergio Arlandis, expressed the university’s commitment through culture and music ‘at a time of war, both in Europe and in the Middle East’, which they have been showing since October. She also stated that ‘this year, our festival has a voice as committed as Marwan's’.

Marwán arrived in Valencia from Latin America, where he began the presentation of his new album, a presentation that will include more than 60 concerts in 10 countries. The musician from Aluche (Madrid) was moved and grateful when he expressed that ‘live concerts are the best thing an artist can expect.’