Jury National Current Music Award 2023 He suggested that this award be given to Rodrigo Cuevas. The value of this award, given every year by the Ministry of Culture and Sports, is 30,000 Euros.
The jury awarded the artist with this recognition “for the uniqueness of his work with a transcendental proposal combining traditional folk music with contemporary popular music.” The jury also assessed that “his artistic project demonstrates a strong commitment to diversity” and highlighted “the intensity and deeply personal imagery of his vibrant music”.
Rodrigo Cuevas (Oviedo 1985) artist multidisciplinary: singer, composer, accordionist and percussionist. He studied piano and tuba at the Oviedo Conservatory and studied Sonology at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC) in Barcelona.
I am also interested in world music and the disciplines of cabaret and circus.His artistic discovery emerged during his stay in a small village in the interior of Galicia, where he was introduced to the purest traditional music thanks to local tambourines.
He published his own book in 2012. First album Alone: ‘Yo soy la maga’ is an album where electronica and traditional music combine in the catharsis of disco. He later created a provocative psychedelic festival duo, Dolorosa Compañía, with whom he toured the Spanish underground for three years until the premiere of his first solo exhibition, Electrocuplé.
At the beginning of 2016, he released the ‘Prince of Verdiciu’ EP on the Aris Música label, and this was the turning point in his career, as he went from performing in ten-person venues to a tour with over 100 performances all over the peninsula. A year later he released his third album. New EP tribute to Asturian artist Tino Casal.
His second show was ‘El Mundo Por Montera’. In 2018, he participated in La Verbena de la Paloma, directed by Maxi Rodríguez, as part of the Oviedo Zarzuela Season and wrote the music for the play ‘Sidra en Vena’. It is also part of the musical ‘Fear, the show that should never have been made’.
He then presents his new show ‘Trópico de Covadonga’, conceived as a popular songbook. In his album ‘Manual de Cortejo’, released in 2019 with Raül Refree, he blends Asturian rhythms and melodies with muiñeira and habaneras, among other styles.
Among the awards he received; The Best World Music Album and Best Emerging Artist awards stand out at the MIN Awards. That same year she premiered her last show: Barbián, a cabaret zarzuela at the Teatro de la Zarzuela, at the Veranos de la Villa and, most recently, at the Prague Quadrennial Stage and Stage.
Asturian and Spanish
In 2021, when he received the Ojo Crítico Award, he also founded the La Benéfica de Piloña (Asturias) association together with Sergi Martí and Nacho Somovilla. centre Art live for artistic cultural expression, community action and the fight against the abandonment and depopulation of rural areas. Later, in 2022, he was awarded the 2022 Rainbow Award by the Ministry of Equality.
In September of the same year, he released his third album ‘Manual de Romería’, which preceded the show’s premiere, based on his last album La romería, which premiered at the (a)phonica Festival on 30 June. He is from Girona, with whom he has already toured more than twenty cities this summer and has a number of performances confirmed until 2024 in different national and international locations in Portugal, Belgium, France and Mexico. The show is fueled by the songs from the album. It uses Asturian and Spanish as vehicle languages.
Winners in previous calls include: Sílvia Pérez Cruz (2022), Rozalén (2021), Chano Domínguez (2020), María Rodríguez ‘Mala Rodríguez’ (2019), Christina Rosenvinge (2018), Javier Ruibal (2017), Martirio ( 2017). 2016), Jorge Pardo (2015), Carmen París (2014), Luz Casal (2013), Kiko Veneno (2012), Santiago Auserón (2011), the Dúo Amaral (2010) and Joan Manuel Serrat (2009).