Ramon Escalé
Born in Manresa in 1959, Ramon Escalé is a conductor, pianist, composer and arranger with a long career.
He has collaborated on several occasions in different musical fields, as far as gospel is concerned with artists such as Donald Lawrence, Smokie Norful, Daniel Thomas, Linda Tillery & the Cultural Heritage Choir, Andrea Encinas, Isaac Cates, Lurine Cato, Trey McLaughlin and The Sounds of Zamar, Safari Children’s Choir, Monica Bernassola, Jason Taylor and Rosemary Cosby; in relation to Latin jazz he has collaborated with Barcelona Big Latin Band & Chucho Valdés, Omara Portuondo, Paquito d’Rivera, Jerry González, Lucrecia, Telva Rojas, José Luís Cortés “El Tosco”; and in other styles he has also collaborated with Raimon, Txarango, La Locomotora Negra, Dagoll Dagom, Big Mama, Jordi Molina, La Vella Dixieland, Paula Domínguez, Banda Municipal de Bilbao, Els Comediants and Camerata Bacasis.
He created the shows Gospel meets Latin with London Community Gospel Choir, Messengers and Barcelona Big Latin Band, Indians música d’anada i tornada with Camerata Bacasis, RE Latin trio and Marta Riera; Gospel meets Flamenco with Paula Domínguez, Be Here Now. George Harrison Tribute with Messengers, Gospel, Músiques de l’ànima with the Banda Municipal de Barcelona (dir: José Rafael Pascual-Vilaplana) & Bcn Gospel Messengers, Go Higher! and Dance! Messengers sing Motown with Messengers, Pavana Club with Barcelona Big Latin Band, From roots to Heaven and From the Heart of heart with Esclat Gospel Singers.
During his career he has delivered nearly 300 workshops, mostly in Catalonia but also in Menorca, Madrid, Seville, Mallorca, Burgos, Valencia, Miranda de Ebro, Bilbao, Barakaldo, Getxo, Portugalete, Plentzia, Ibiza, Tenerife, Pamplona, also in France, Italy, Switzerland, Sardinia, England, Kenya and Uganda, which have allowed him to experiment and mature a specific pedagogy to transmit all the energy of gospel, adapting it to the sonority and idiosyncrasy of European choirs and singers.
It is also thanks to the association with entities and foundations such as British Gospel Arts (London) and Music Mission Trips (USA) that he has been able to deepen in the spirituality, styles and techniques characteristic of gospel.
He currently conducts Barcelona Gospel Messengers, Esclat Gospel Singers (Manresa), Goizargi Gospel Choir (Euskadi) and Cor Gospel del Conservatori del Liceu (Barcelona). He has been the founder and director of Messengers Gospel College (Barcelona, 2014-2019), Izar Gospel Unity (Euskadi, 2019-2021), Arteta Gospel School (Barakaldo, 2017-2019), Escola de Gospel del Taller de Músics de Barcelona (2010-2014) and choir teacher at the Conservatori Superior del Liceu de Barcelona (2006-2019).
He is the producer and director of the One Heart Festival (1st edition 2019, 2nd edition 2022, 3rd edition 2023 and 4th edition 2024) and musical director of the Campus Gospel Rajadell in its 17 previous editions.
In his own words, Escalé says: “I am a musician, in the broadest sense of the word, I feel I am a musician, specializing in diversity, although I have finally found a music charged with spirituality, Gospel, which fulfills my musical and personal concerns. My wish is to bring it closer to everyone, to help project its universal message and to help to assume the essential role of music in our lives, not only as passive consumers but as 100% active elements”.
Awards:
- Jazz Musicians Association Award 2001. Best Big Band conductor.
- Jazz Musicians Association Award 2002. Best Big Band Conductor.
- Enderrock Award Best Jazz Album 2013 “Pavana Club” Barcelona Big Latin Band.
- Enderrock Award Best Jazz Album 2017 “Be Here Now: George Harrison Tribute” Barcelona Gospel Messengers.
Esclat Gospel Singers
Esclat Gospel Singers was founded in Manresa in January 2000 by Ramon Escalé, pianist and composer, from the experience acquired in the gospel world in his musical collaboration with the Afro-American singers such as Monica Green, Michelle Mcain and Kathy Autrey. He was proposed to create and conduct a gospel choir as at the Esclat music school in Manresa city.
The news spreads among the different musical circles and in a few weeks the choir had more than 40 members. The good results of the work carried out confirmed with the first contracts. Soon the choir was constituted as an independent entity from the music school, although it kept its name. From the beginning, the strength of music reaching the public, but also the choir, led to spectacular live performances filled with energy, enthusiasm and complicity with the audience.
Since its formation, EGS has staged several shows: Gospel & Spirituals (2002), the original musicals Plaça Reial (2003) with the Big Band of the Unió Musical del Bages and Stromboli (2007), Gospel Machine (2004, artistic director Àngels Sánchez), From Roots to Heaven (2008, with Big Mama), That old Spiritual (2010), Tribute to Bob Marley (2013), The New Gospel Machine (2014), From the Heart of Africa (2016) with the Barcelona Big Latin Band (recorded live).
Since 2005, EGS organizes and participates in the Rajadell Gospel Campus, except during the period that the pandemic lasted. It is also part of the One Heart Festival in all its editions in Barcelona. After a long career of almost 25 years on stage and with a more than consolidated campus behind them, Esclat Gospel Singers is today one of the leading gospel choirs in Catalonia.
Gospel Hits, the 2024’s show
The Gospel music phenomenon in Catalonia was born almost 25 years ago. In a totally random and we could say coincidental way, in different places a great interest was awakened in a music of which there were only distant references in films or isolated concerts.
It began gropingly, driven by the great curiosity and fascination we felt towards music that sounded very close and far away at the same time. Without any other references than what we could find on the Internet or what we heard from someone who had been to America, we began to get to know and identify the great names of contemporary and traditional Gospel.
The choirs and music of Kirk Franklin, Donald Lawrence, Kim Burrell, Hezekiah Walker, Shirley Caesar, Fred Hammond and also the more traditional ones such as Mahalia Jackson, Edwin Hawkins, Aretha Franklin, among many others, became the model that guided us and inspired us. Since then and until now, Gospel has experienced exponential growth both in terms of the formation of choirs and musical quality and, above all, it has become a force of cohesion and proximity of people beyond an artistic manifestation and a religious celebration as it was in its origins in America.
This is what we invite you to see and hear at our concert on Sunday, a brilliant and vibrant sample of the reality of what Gospel is today in our territory, with a repertoire full of great hits that everyone will be able to sing.
Topics like Giants (Donald Lawrence), Brighter day (Kirk Franklin), Yes Lord, yes (Shirley Caesar), Revelations 19:1 (Jeffrey LaValley), and pop music hits covered in Gospel key like September (Earth, Wind & Fire) or Celebration (Kool and the Gang), will be the soundtrack of this exciting show that we will offer you.
