Pasodobles with the Soul of a Bonfire

From a young age, music was his refuge and drive. The composer Miguel Ángel Mas Mataix was born in the Alicante town of Cañada - next to Villena, as he points out - where he began his musical journey in the village band, playing the saxophone. Over time, he completed his studies, and his relentless curiosity to create led him to take the next step, composing.

"I started writing my first pieces in the year 2000. I had that curiosity," he recounts a quarter of a century later when - alternating his skill with the teaching profession - he has more than a hundred compositions, many of them linked to two festive universes that define the life of the province of Alicante: the Moors and Christians and the Hogueras de San Juan.

Mas Mataix's connection with the city of Alicante was immediate, emotional, and lasting. As a child, he recalls how his band traveled to the capital to play in Fogueres, with the Calvo Sotelo commission. "Going from playing in a small village to performing on large avenues was thrilling and exciting." Those experiences, which included staying several days in guesthouses and even parading with a leg in a cast after an accident, left a deep mark.

That memory remains present thanks to his friendship with Andrés Colomina 'Colo', tuba player and director of the Unión Musical de Torrellano. "We've known each other for over 30 years." It was during a Hércules CF match at the Rico Pérez when "he proposed composing a special piece for the 75th anniversary of the foguera Sèneca-Autobusos. We wanted something different, with dolçaina, something that wasn't just another pasodoble. That's how 'De Quiroga a Sèneca-Autobusos' was born," a commission of which he is an honorary foguerer for his tireless work with this tradition.

Since then, his collaboration with the festival has continued to grow. He has composed pieces dedicated to beauty queens, anniversaries, and festival-goers... He has even composed three generations of pasodobles, in the case of the Tresáncoras family: one for Arturo, another for Amparo - an idea conceived by her husband, Salva Gómez- and also for Aitana.

And not only that, but Mas Mataix has also dedicated a pasodoble to the Hogueras of Alicante themselves. It was on the 90th anniversary when, altruistically and driven by Josep Amand Tomàs, he composed a piece dedicated to the event. "It was through Sèneca-Autobusos, but dedicated to the Fiesta," he clarifies. Additionally, he has also drawn on popular songs to create new scores, such as 'Arreando xim pam pum', expanding the Fiesta's repertoire.