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“An eternal woman
who closes his eyes
to see better
the symphony that the heart dictates.
Black hands on white keys.
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RECEIVE THE
White smile on black keys”.
With this poem, the journalist and writer Juan Mosquera Restrepo described Teresa Gómez; a girl who grew up in a palace without any royal comforts. Teresita, as they continue to tell her despite having turned 80 in May, is the adopted daughter of Valerio Gómez and Teresita Arteaga, the doormen of the Palace of Fine Arts in Medellín. The room in which she slept, she remembers, was a few steps from the room where the most precious pianos in the Colombian city were kept. Only a room full of statues of saints covered with sheets separated her from the keys. That and mid-century racism, for which she was told over and over again that “that wasn't for black people.” The only one who ignored the chant was her adoptive father. And, of course, her. “He took me by the hand to check that everything was closed properly at night. And when no one was looking, I started playing. He would sometimes sit and listen to me. The fact that? I don't even know. “He played what he saw girls who could take classes playing,” she says as if he still had the fresh image of her little girl's hands trying to guess what the next note would be.
Teresita learned to play first by hearsay and then secretly. “When the teacher caught me she told me: 'The black woman is playing the piano,'” she says with her eyes alight. But her talent outweighed her and she agreed to give him unofficial classes when her wealthy students left the campus and without anyone knowing. Tuesdays at 8:00 p.m. This was the first big victory of many.
This is how that love at first hearing was forged. From her first classes until she became the most recognized (and beloved) classical pianist in Colombia, she went through everything. The former Colombian president Belisario Betancur selected her as a cultural attaché in East Germany to bring the melodies of the best Colombian musicians abroad. She has played on the most important stages in the world such as the Chopin Society or at the Franz Liszt International Festival and was member of the Colombian Opera. It's hard to believe she doesn't have a series on Netflix yet. Despite her recognition and international fame, Gómez says that “a person never stops being black”: “But one can destroy the other's racism. I have done it thousands of times,” she says from Jericó, in the heart of Antioquia, during the Hay Festival Jericó, organized by the Antioquia Family Compensation Fund (Comfama).
Although the series seems to be a long time coming, it has a beautiful biography recently published by the renowned writer Beatriz Helena Robledo, with whom they shared almost five years of conversations, wines, letters and memories, in addition to decades of friendship. “When Tere asks me what now?, I tell her that my job now is to get it out of me. I studied her so much that I almost feel like she possesses me. With her I did a doctorate in music, Buddhism, anti-racism…,” says Robledo, laughing. Teresita Gomez. Music, a lifetime (Debate, 2023) is a rigorous, detailed and inspiring legacy about a woman who still has a lot to say. And a lot to play: “They love me, but it's not because she is a great pianist. It's because I put my whole soul into it. How Chavela sang [Vargas]. I play classical music chavelously”says the artist.
This Sunday, she receives EL PAÍS at the house of one of her great friends, surrounded by orchids, bougainvilleas and hibiscus, with a glass of white wine in her hand and her cell phone on silent “so as not to lose the rituals of conversation.” She laughs out loud, clean and contagious, gets excited easily and narrates as if she remembers everything for the first time. In that small but robust body the two speak Teres: the woman with an old soul and the girl who took a long time to let play Mozart.
Ask. You grew up with many prohibitions. I couldn't play piano with the other girls, I couldn't play Mozart… How did music become a refuge?
Answer. Oh, it's so weird. Because my childhood was playing piano and as a child things don't hurt for more than five minutes. They called me black and my mother told me that she should sing them some verses: “I am dark-haired, lady. I don't deny my color. And between roses and lilies, brown is the best.” And they laughed at me, of course. I defended myself with poetry. And… what else was I going to say, that I speak in a rush and I forget?
Q. We were talking about racism…
R. Oh yeah. See, one begins to learn to defend oneself. When I wasn't invited to birthdays or first communions, I would stop and cry at the door and my mother would pinch me. But I also forgot that, because those who didn't invite me were secret friends. They suffered too, I think. That's why I always say that you have to learn to be black…
Q. As?
R. It is a spiritual path of starting to love yourself. It starts the day when you are happy with this color, which you know is a color that not everyone likes, but I do… The problem of racism is increased by oneself, because one can destroy the racism of the other. I have done it a thousand times.
Q. Like when the Colombian ambassador to East Germany asked him if he knew how to read and write. You answered yes and that, furthermore, he had very nice handwriting…
R. The thing is that if you go to deal with the person, you are going down the wrong path. Silence is one of the greatest defenses there is. In the face of these strong things, you must remain silent to disarm the other.
Q. Did you feel like you had to prove more than others?
R. Of course, one has to show that black people can play Mozart, but one has to show it well and be very happy with what one does, so that no one tears it down.
Q. And he did it without references.
R. Oh yes. Now there are two around here, but black classical pianists are still rare. Furthermore, playing cultured music, as they call it, in Latin America is a journey to having few resources all your life. Until I was 50 it was very hard, I raised three children with limited resources. And now I don't have money, but I'm calm. When you are black and you are adopted, you are left with nothing. You have no one behind you, you have no money. At first I played piano so that people would love me; Now I play piano because I love people a lot. Thinking about becoming a role model… is a very big responsibility. Oh, what a strong thing!
Q. Did Zen culture help you stay calm?
R. That came later, I got into it when reading a biography of a yogi of love It seems to me that love is much more than the bed. And Buddhism helped me a lot, because they didn't tell you that this happens to you because you behaved well or badly… It was all about self-knowledge. There are people who say it leaves your mind blank, but I don't believe in that. Because the crazy woman in the house is telling you nonsense in your head all the time…
Q. It's very difficult to get that inner voice out…
R. I think the crazy woman in the house accompanies you all your life. So you have to slow it down a little to be able to visualize what is really happening.
Q. Does imposter syndrome ever go away?
R. Sometimes it comes back. And I think: 'again?' And she comes back. It has cost me a lot. But I no longer tried to attack her, but she let it come back. And she leaves. If you don't fight the enemy, the enemy gets tired.
Q. Upon returning from her cultural exchange in Cuba, she was accused of being left-handed; she belongs to the M-19. The current president, Gustavo Petro, was part of that guerrilla. You also highly praised Vice President Francia Márquez, whom you called “the Colombian Mandela”…
R. Look, I don't like to talk about politics, but Petro is a very wise guy. A man who is more of a world leader than a Colombian president because here they are not going to let him do absolutely anything. He is a humanist. And France uncovered everything that one believed was not happening, a racism that we thought was no longer there.
Q. You prioritized music above everything, even love.
R. It's just that not even love came before the piano. What a sin the men I was with! —he laughs— Because I told them, I can't go out now, I have to memorize the second movement of the sonata.
Q. Priorities…
R. Yes, and with other things. Music had gotten into me so much that love things were left in the background. Is a monkhood musical —he laughs.
Q. And yet everyone adores her in Medellín…
R. But it was also difficult. I returned to live in Medellín to reconcile with the paisas. It was very difficult to be black there, but one has to heal the place where she was born. “Everyone goes back to the place where they lived,” he sings.
Q. Abroad, the most heard Colombian music is reggaeton…
R. The classic is heard less and less, yes. We are entering a moment of industrialization of music where the virtuous without soul occurs. There is a current of cold music right now. But last night at the concert what did they play? That was reggaeton?
Q. No, it was rap.
R. Oh, how wonderful! I would have been a rapper, at heart. If I were born again I would be a rapper. An incendiary rapper. I love it. I swear, because I am a rebel. I'm not a conformist at all, they would have burned me anywhere.
Q. You turned 80 in May. What did this new stage bring you?
R. It's wonderful, one gets rid of all the nonsense of thinking about what other people want. You see things as they are, of course they also have their mistakes. But now I am more realistic without being pessimistic. Age lets you know that things are not as one wants or imagines them… Many dreams made by society come to an end when it discovers that they are of no use. Like consumerism, which hits very hard.
Q. And how are you going to celebrate 90?
R. Dancing.
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