We were lucky to catch up with Shaí Vertty recently and have shared our conversation below.
Shaí, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
The most meaningful project that I have worked on is “Casa Catrín”. It is a Brussels-based organization where my colleague and I work as music and guitar teachers and concert organizers. Founded in 2022, it is the project where I have put the most heart into it because it represents a very special part of my life. I arrived in Brussels in 2021 to continue with my guitar studies at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels (KCB). Brussels is a very cultural city; you can find concerts of jazz, classical, folk, experimental, or traditional and world music, but also theater, exhibitions, and multicultural events every week, plus the international festivals held once per year, like “Fiesta Latina”or “Día de los Muertos”, where you can find events from different cultures throughout the entire weekend. But we are guitar players, the same as many of our friends, and in Brussels, yes, there is a movement of classical guitar, but nothing else besides academies or very professional venues like concert halls and festivals at the conservatories, maybe two per year. There are a lot of foreign guitar students and those who are aiming to build a career that cannot easily access a concert venue. That is why we decided to create ‘Casa Catrín’ in Brussels, where we can have a high-quality guitar concert frequently in a space where the acoustics and the space are simply perfect for our instrument.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am Shaí Vertty. I was born in 1996 in Hidalgo, Mexico, where I completed my bachelor’s degree in music with a specialization in classical guitar in 2020. I compose and arrange music mostly for the guitar. I teach music theory and guitar, and as a performer, I am actively involved in chamber music. I founded the guitar quartet “Vorágine”, the guitar and voice duo “Rojo y Negro” and the currently active “Duo Hygge” with Sarah Badlissi. I have played extensively in guitar orchestras and accompanied flute players and singers for their bachelor exams. Additionally, I recorded with Nadia Borislova and her guitar orchestra in “Los Volcanes Sagrados Vol. II (The Sacred Volcanoes)”. I have won some competitions for guitar solo, composition, and the scholarship “Creadores del Futuro 2021 (Creators of the Future)” to pursue a master’s degree abroad from Mexico. For the scholarship, I chose Belgium because of the guitar teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Antigoni Goni, who is one of the most acclaimed guitar performers and teachers worldwide. Brussels was a game-changer because it is a city where you encounter people from all around the world not only at school but also at concerts, stores, or walking on the streets, each with a different culture and story to tell.
In Casa Catrín, we aim to be the connection between those diverse backgrounds and classical guitar concerts. Since March 2022, we have hosted more than 10 concerts, including guitar solos, guitar and narrator performances, guitar duos, and a baroque ensemble with singers. Each of them performers from different places, each with a unique personality that somehow we coincided in the same place. Until now, over two concert seasons, we have had musicians from Italy, Syria, the USA, Japan, Mexico, Lithuania, Belgium, Spain, France, and Norway. We even had the luthier Tobias Braun showing his guitars made in homagge to José Romanillos
We take pride in being a place where the audience can see and experience the richness of diversity through the guitar.
How’d you meet your business partner?
In 2021 the guitar competition organized by the Guitar Foundation of America, had to take place in two different places; in Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University; and in Brussels at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, each of them hosting 2 out of the 4 contestants . I was living in Belgium already, and I was there watching the live competition. Both of the competitors played amazingly.
After the concert there was a guy talking with a friend, I heard that his name was Samuel, and I saw he was wearing a “guayabera” a typical cloth that you can find in latin america. He saw that I had a mexican flag on my guitar case and I was wearing a mouthmask with little cactus with mustaches and hats and he found out immediately that both of us were mexicans.
We grabbed a beer a couple of weeks after and we ended up walking across Brussels at 2am sharing our jokes and dreams. He helped me a lot because he and his brother were more established in the city than me. He quickly became my best friend.
Samuel Rived is a portuguese borned mexican (because mexicans can be born wherever they want as Chavela Vargas said) who studied in Manchester his bachelor degree in guitar and currently he is doing his master degree with Antigoni Goni in Brussels.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I wasn’t living in Brussels; I lived in a Flemish town called Hoeilaart, small but full of people with big hearts. However, I was studying in Brussels, and the last train to Hoeilaart was around 10:40pm. So, I had to crash on Samuel’s couch many times because I missed the train or simply wanted to stay longer in Brussels. Samuel always had the idea of organizing a classical guitar concert series in Brussels, and I was always trying to drop ideas, but we couldn’t find a place to do it with our limited resources.
It was September 2022, and the Mexican Embassy in Brussels dressed up the Manneken Pis with traditional clothes from Mexico because it was the Sunday after the Mexican celebration of independence. Samuel and I were there; we sang “Cielito Lindo” and the Mexican Hymn. It was a sunny day, and we wanted to walk around the city, searching for nice streets in the neighborhoods with ice cream in our hands. After hours of walking, we found this place called “Grand Hospice” which was an old hospice building now being used for cultural purposes. We were surprised by the style and design of the place and we talked with residents who had an exposition, a bazar, or people from the bar in the middle. They told us that they were renting spaces for projects because it was a “temporary occupation”. After two years, the building was going to be demolished and turned into apartments. So, we signed up for a meeting with the administration to explain our project.
At the beginning, we wanted to use the space for giving lessons, as a rehearsal space, and to organize concerts. But we met a colleague during the meeting with the administration. She is also a guitarist but more involved in early music, Ieva Baltmiskyte, who wanted to have a gallery or a showroom of lutes and early music instruments. The fact that she studied with Antigoni, the same teacher that I was studying with and the teacher that Samuel is studying with now, somehow connected us in terms of collaboration. We decided to work together in the same space because the two projects fit. They offered us a room large enough for us, but not in proper condition due to the last owner. So, we had to clean, cover holes, paint everything, and set up the electricity during the winter. Ieva had her instruments in February 2023, so we started teaching, and the first concert was in March 2023, and the first concert at the chapel in April of the same year. Now it is confirmed that the “temporary occupation” of the “Grand Hospice” is extended for 5 more years.
We had the ideas, we had the energy, and the motivation to do it. We just had to walk around with no worries, enjoying each street until we found the perfect place to start working on our dream.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/casa.catrin/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/casa.catrin.guitar
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sha%C3%AD-vertty-a87b40211/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEnqkUNAoC4EwmPSavE-gTA
- Other: https://www.facebook.com/svertty/ https://www.instagram.com/svertty/ https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwF-NCRNYAP/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=ODhhZWM5NmIwOQ== https://fb.watch/orwTmfoVso/
Image Credits
Pictures by: https://www.instagram.com/tomdebeuckelaerphoto/ https://www.instagram.com/irissnl/