Yerai Cortés Says He Wants to ‘Create Songs Like They’re Movie Scenes’ | Billboard News

Yerai Cortés explains why Disney movies make him cry and why he creates music that feels so cinematic.

Yerai Cortés:Well, for me being the first guitarist nominated in this Latin Grammy category is crazy, because of all the categories that existed when we submitted, this was the only one we expected was a sure “no.” We thought it could be the album or the film video or, the sound, maybe, I don’t know. But we didn’t expect this one. So, still processing this beautiful reception of giving that space and that space to the musician, to the guitarist.

It’s very beautiful that Yerai is a restless musician, a curious musician, with a desire to learn and a desire to experiment from folklore, from flamenco music, from gypsy music, well, to experiment and learn more each day from neighboring music, from the folklore of other lands, from Mexico, from Argentina, from Colombia, from Chile, from Panama. I love the tamboritos from Panama. It seems to me like the only gift that music gives us is being able to share it with other cultures too. And that is a blessing.

I couldn’t tell you exactly why we’ve achieved this reach and given access to so many people who hadn’t heard flamenco before or who had heard flamenco, but not in this way or not in this form. I still feel that I’m a traditional musician and a classical musician in what music is and in what the formula of my music is like. But it’s true that maybe, when it comes to presenting it, one always thinks about the visual, thinks about the sound, about how you want it to be heard, about the structures of the songs.

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