Ruper Ordorika, Abbey Award 2024

Ruper Ordorika will receive the Abbey of Journalism Award. The Abbey Prize was born with the objective of rewarding those individuals or associations that have stood out for their work in favor of the normalization of the Basque Country. On 12 September it will be held in Hendaia, specifically in the Abbey Palace, and, as in the awarding of these awards, the meeting will also be a meeting point for Basque cultural activity.

Argazkia: Gari Araolaza, cc-by-sa, Wikimedia Commons: Ruper Ordorika 2001. urtean Igor Elortza bertsolariarekin.

The award recognizes the trajectory of Oñati's music in the world of creation and culture in Euskera over four decades. In these decades, Ruper Ordorika has become one of the main cultural references of the Basques.

This was explained by Garbiñe Mendizabal, Foral Director of Linguistic Equality of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, in presenting the prize: "He collected the witness of the new Basque song and moved it to new spaces, in the first albums he published in the 1980s. Since then, in a broad field between song and rock, he has given Euskera countless new songs and melodies. Both solo and as a group, it has merged traditional rock and singing, it has collaborated with musicians from here and abroad, it has worked bridges with literature and art and it has participated in many cultural initiatives.”

The Anadoa prize is awarded almost annually, sometimes within two years. In fact, last year there was no award, but a novelty, the Abbey became a normalized form, in tribute to the Abbey of Antón.

They have been awarded in previous editions, since the award was created in 1996: