Andrea Casarrubios, from a small town in Ávila, to compete against Dudamel at the Grammys

Sometimes the metaphor becomes real. When Andrea Casarrubios opens the case of her cello, a pair of pink petals emerge from inside, as if this wooden device weighing about 12 kilos and shaped like a figure eight worked miracles. “I like bougainvillea,” she excuses herself, shrugging her shoulders: “One of the flowers I sometimes leave inside must have dried up.” Casarrubios, aged 37, has become the first Spanish woman to be nominated for a Grammy in the classical music category. She did not win: on the 3rd, the name heard at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles was Gustavo Dudamel , but she did not care. “It sounds like a cliché, but being nominated was already quite an achievement. I will continue working, just as if I had won.”

“Music is an experience that allows you to feel things, to have another kind of perspective and knowledge,” he explains over a cup of coffee in Madrid, where he has just moved from New York, at least for a while, to be able to slow down, be close to his family and dedicate himself to composing away from the incessant cycle of concerts around the world in which he lives. “ The most important thing about my compositions is that they have a purpose . And, if we talk about each part of the work, each note, that it has a purpose within the composition in general. If not, it is superfluous.”

She is happy to be able to settle in the Spanish capital. “When you lead a life like mine, you belong everywhere and nowhere in particular,” she laments. “When I perform, I assume that I travel… but when I compose I want to be here, close to my family.” That family is in a small town in Ávila, San Esteban del Valle, where Casarrubios was born 37 years ago. Her parents were not musicians, but they did listen to music. They sang in a choir and, she confesses, they have always supported her. “Even as a child, she played with instruments, made small compositions,” she says. She studied in Spain until she was 18, but then her journey took her to the United States: university (piano and cello) at Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore; her master's degree, in Los Angeles; and her doctorate, in New York.

Casarrubios has a thorn in her side from those early years. Being far away, at a time when internet access was not what it is now, with a different language… “Now I am in the process of accepting that dislocated duality,” she confesses, although this uprooting is sometimes productive for art: “On planes, completely isolated, ideas come to me. It can be an emotion, it can be three words… something that serves as a seed and that I then develop.” She knows a little about planes: in April she will go to the United States (first, the West Coast, then, the East Coast) to present her own cello and orchestra concert. Then she will return to Spain to perform in Talavera de la Reina, then it will be time to go to Mexico…

When the calendar gives him a chance, he will return to San Esteban, of course. “It is a magical valley, very rural. The professional environment is stressful: egos, competitiveness… but nature puts you in your place, it makes you see how insignificant we are.” Egos? Is the commonplace that ordinary people have about classical music as a space of extreme competition and untamable pride true ? “There are people with a lot of ego, but like in any field,” Casarrubios answers. “But, in general, truly extraordinary people tame their ego. The more you know what things cost, the more humble you are,” he says before picking up the cello for the photo shoot.

That other half of her that she holds carefully is made of wood, is four years older than her and is French. “It was built in 1984,” she says, pointing to the instrument. She looks at her cello and remembers the sacrifices her parents have made to get her to where she is: “This instrument came from one of the loans they had to take out.” She has played legendary pieces, like a Stradivarius , but nothing like her own instrument, with which she started winning competitions from a young age, the proceeds of which she used to pay for her own training. “Ours is a long-term friendship,” she jokes.

With that wooden friend came what put her in the headlines of the international press: the Grammy nomination. How did she experience that? “It was absolutely bombastic,” she says, laughing. “A show . You can agree more or less with that music, but you can feel the money behind it, the level of the bet. The quality of the string accompanists, or the dance corps in each performance, is mind-blowing. It was very nice to celebrate my colleagues, to see that collective work is recognized.” The nominated work (in the category of best classical composition), SEVEN , is a 10-minute piece that emerged during the pandemic, as a tribute to the victims. The nomination, she says, was a compliment, but it has not changed her. “The Grammy nomination “It doesn’t change at all the relationship I have with my music, or with what I do, with the work I’ve been doing over the years,” she explains. “ But it’s clear that it has been the most well-known worldwide . It may sound cliché, but I didn’t mind not winning, I’m grateful for the recognition of my work, and it’s a reflection of the fact that people have been touched by the piece.” Author of another thirty compositions, she also celebrates that through this nomination people can access the rest of her catalogue.

Today’s music, where fame often comes overnight and where many of the most famous performers have more instinct than technical knowledge, has little to do with the classical field, with the decades of superhuman effort necessary to hone talent. “It’s clear that it’s a huge and impressive show to watch on TV,” she laughs. “But the next day I went back to work. To keep learning.” Creator of other important works such as Caminante , Speechless or Herencia (the album containing Herencia will be released in the summer, although she hasn’t found a name for it yet), she doesn’t close the door to composing for cinema “as long as it’s a profound film.”

Have you ever felt rejection in the music business for being a woman ? “As a performer, not so much, because there were more references: people like Jacqueline du Pré or my teacher here in Spain, María Macedo, have paved the way. But as a composer… if you look at the catalogue of the great composers, they are just that, 'the ones'. For a few years now, there has been important work done to discover female composers.” Discover or recover? “No, no, discover. Because they were literally covered up.” When Casarrubios began to play her pieces, 12 years ago, at 26, she didn't say they were hers, out of modesty. But people liked them. “Many asked about those compositions, and in the end I told them they were mine. Commissions to compose began to arrive... and until now.” And from the past to the future: how does she see herself in a few years? “I want to be healthy and happy. "The rest, I work on every day," he says, with a slightly mischievous smile, aware that any award could easily come out of the French cello case.