<\/p>\n\n
Some memories fade over the years. Others simply learn to live with you. <\/p>\n\n
Ander Zubillaga was six years old when, on August 7, 1996, he was on vacation with his family at the Las Nieves campground in Biescas.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n It was just another summer day. The pool. Games. Ping-pong. Family vacation. <\/p>\n\n Then it started to rain.<\/p>\n\n And everything changed.<\/p>\n\n Thirty years later, that boy is a professional musician and has decided to return to the place that shaped his life to do something that perhaps no interview could ever achieve: to recount that day without uttering a single word<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n His new composition is simply titled Biescas<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n And it’s probably the most important song I’ve ever written.<\/p>\n\n The Biescas flood remains etched in the collective memory of the Spanish people.<\/p>\n\n An extraordinarily intense storm caused the Ar\u00e1s ravine to flood, and a massive torrent of water, mud, and debris swept down onto the Las Nieves campground. A total of 87 people died, including 27 children.<\/strong> Hundreds were injured. <\/p>\n\n Zubillaga was there.<\/p>\n\n And he remembers what happened with surprising clarity for someone who was only six years old at the time.<\/p>\n\n \u201cI remember absolutely everything, as if it were yesterday,\u201d the musician explained. <\/p>\n\n His personal history also includes one of those episodes that are hard to forget.<\/p>\n\n When the flood hit, his family was in the pool area. His father managed to break through the drop ceiling and get Ander to safety on a concrete beam. <\/p>\n\n They survived.<\/p>\n\n Many of those who were just a few meters away did not do so.<\/p>\n\n That’s where the story of Biescas<\/em> really begins.<\/p>\n\n The idea came to him unexpectedly about a year and a half ago. Zubillaga was playing guitar at his parents’ house when he realized that perhaps the time had come to confront that memory through music. <\/p>\n\n But he made a crucial decision.<\/p>\n\n I wouldn’t write a song.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n Because perhaps there were no words capable of explaining it.<\/p>\n\n Zubillaga turned to his natural style: fingerstyle<\/strong>, a technique that allows the guitarist to simultaneously play melody, harmony, bass, and percussive elements.<\/p>\n\n And he turned the guitar into a storyteller.<\/p>\n\n Listening to the piece while knowing its story completely changes the experience.<\/p>\n\n The beginning is deliberately intimate.<\/p>\n\n A nearly bare guitar captures that summer morning: the sense of normalcy, the games, the feeling that nothing bad can happen.<\/p>\n\n Then something changes.<\/p>\n\n The harmonies grow darker.<\/p>\n\n Tension arises.<\/p>\n\n The music begins to build up in layers, like the clouds that covered the sky over the Pyrenees that afternoon.<\/p>\n\n And then the storm hits.<\/p>\n\n Xabier Zeberio<\/strong> ‘s strings expand the emotional space, while Igor Arostegui<\/strong> ‘s orchestral percussion evokes an almost physical sense of danger.<\/p>\n\n Until the voices of the Hodeiertz choir<\/strong> come in.<\/p>\n\n We are no longer listening only to a child’s recollection.<\/p>\n\n We are listening to a collective memory.<\/p>\n\n Perhaps the most powerful moment in Biescas<\/em> is precisely when the music stops.<\/p>\n\n The composition builds until it reaches a climax in which the percussion, guitar, strings, and vocals seem to burst forth.<\/p>\n\n And then there is silence.<\/p>\n\n Zubillaga remembers exactly that from that night.<\/p>\n\n The silence that followed.<\/p>\n\n \u201cAfter all the chaos, silence remains,\u201d he explained regarding the structure of the composition. <\/p>\n\n That silence serves as the song’s final instrument.<\/p>\n\n There’s no need to explain anything else.<\/p>\n\n If writing the song meant confronting the memory, shooting the music video was even harder.<\/p>\n\n Zubillaga returned to the site of the former Las Nieves campground.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n The crew filmed right in the area where that bathhouse stood\u2014the one that had served as a refuge for his family thirty years earlier. <\/p>\n\n The decision transforms the video into something that goes far beyond the usual concept of a music video.<\/p>\n\n The musician does not perform ” Biescas<\/em> ” on a stage built for the occasion.<\/p>\n\n She interprets it based on her own memory.<\/p>\n\n The story behind Biescas<\/em> could easily overshadow the musician, but it’s worth taking a moment to focus on him as well.<\/p>\n\n Born in Tolosa in 1990<\/strong>, Zubillaga began studying the accordion at age eight and later found his true calling in the guitar. He has been a professional musician for over fourteen years and has been a member of or collaborated with numerous projects on the Basque music scene, including Xabi Solano, Izaro, Huntza, Iker Lauroba, and Mikel Moreno<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n His solo career has been built around fingerstyle, blending it with elements from blues, country, and rock. <\/p>\n\n In 2023, he published *Itsasoan Elurra*<\/strong><\/em> , and in March 2025, Ander Zubillaga Live<\/strong><\/em>, which stemmed from a performance in Donostia where he opened for El Twanguero<\/strong>. Shortly thereafter came another important moment: playing alongside Tommy Emmanuel<\/strong>, one of the world\u2019s leading figures in fingerstyle guitar, during his Guitar Camp in Rome. <\/p>\n\n All that technical background now leads to something much easier to explain.<\/p>\n\n A guitar used to tell a story.<\/p>\n\n And perhaps that is where Biescas’s<\/em> true greatness lies.<\/p>\n\n We could talk about Zubillaga\u2019s fingerstyle technique, his dynamic shifts, the cinematic structure of the piece, or how he uses percussion and vocals to expand the narrative possibilities of a guitar.<\/p>\n\n But after listening to her, all that seems secondary.<\/p>\n\n Because here, technology serves the purpose of preserving memory<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n Zubillaga doesn’t seem interested in showing off what he can do with six strings. He wants to express something that has been inside him for thirty years. <\/p>\n\n And that completely changes the scope of the composition.<\/p>\n\n Tomorrow marks exactly 30 years since the Biescas tragedy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n Three decades later, that campground no longer exists, but the memory lives on in those who survived, in the families of those who died, and in a society that still recalls the images of that night.<\/p>\n\n Subsequent events also showed that this was not simply an inevitable catastrophe. Years later, the National Court concluded that the tragedy had been foreseeable and preventable<\/strong>, and held the relevant government agencies accountable. <\/p>\n\n That’s why remembering matters.<\/p>\n\n And that’s why Biescas<\/em> now takes on a different meaning.<\/p>\n\n It does not seek to recreate the horror or use it as a spectacle.<\/p>\n\n It aims to preserve memory.<\/p>\n\n Zubillaga himself sums it up much better: he wanted to do it with respect and ensure that those who lived through it would be left with \u201csomething beautiful.\u201d <\/p>\n\n That might be the phrase that best explains this song.<\/p>\n\n Because thirty years later, a boy who survived Biescas has finally found a way to return there<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n This time, he’s only playing a guitar.<\/p>\n\nFrom Summer to Silence<\/h2>\n\n
How does a memory like that become music?<\/h2>\n\n
“Biescas<\/em> ” is structured like a movie without images<\/h2>\n\n
And after the chaos, nothing<\/h2>\n\n
The music video forced Ander Zubillaga to return<\/h2>\n\n
Who is Ander Zubillaga?<\/h2>\n\n
When Technique No Longer Matters<\/h2>\n\n
August 7, 2026, thirty years later<\/h2>\n\n
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