EAE News
Entrepreneurship to the rhythm of batucada
08 de May de 2020
A day in the life of Uri Soler
SolRe Percussió is more than just a percussion company. Run by Uri Soler, a former student on EAE Business School’s Executive Development Program (2017-2018), besides offering a wide range of services designed for children, employees and musicians, the company also runs volunteering schemes with the aim of helping people through rhythm, as well as publicizing and promoting percussion in the cultured sense.
-- This article was written by Eric Morgado and was originally published in EAE’s magazine, Talent Alumni Review --
Since childhood, Uri Soler has been attracted to the world of music and percussion. Over the years, he has managed to turn his passion into a business. After four years working freelance, in 2015, he set up SolRe Percussió. Two years later, he came to EAE Business School to do theExecutive Development Program.
What services do you offer?
So far, we have focused on offering a comprehensive service in the field of batucada, the Brazilian rhythm musical style with an African influence. We specialize in after-school activities for children, but we also run workshops for companies. We work with well-established batucada groups and others that are just starting out. We loan material to bands and we also work with local councils. It wouldn’t be the first time that we perform our services at weddings either.
One of the options that you offer is to apply the world of batucada to groups of employees in companies to improve teamwork. Tell us about this initiative.
In my opinion, music can help people to understand and get to know each other better. SolRe BCN has worked in different companies to achieve this goal. One such case was a multinational insurance firm based in Catalonia. The directors of the company’s various city branches all over the world got together in a hotel in Lloret de Mar. We put them into groups and they took part in the activity. Although they all spoke different languages and perhaps not all of them understood everything, it was a great experience. It creates an interconnection that humanizes professional relationships far more.
With respect to children, what after-school activities have you designed for them?
Education is the area on which our company focuses most. We give classes to existing groups and newly formed groups who do not have much professional experience. In the after-school activities with primary school children, our aim is basically for them to have fun. In the case of high school, with teenagers, we try to form a percussion group that takes it slightly more seriously. We each them songs, certain techniques for playing the instruments. They learn choreographies and create a name and an image. We give them the tools to make their own costumes that they will wear for the performances, etc.
SolRe Percussió runs different kinds of volunteering schemes, one of which offers activities to people with disabilities.
We run the xSiSol program. Every Saturday morning, we organize integration and beginner percussion sessions for kids with special learning needs. With these activities, we aim to create a space exclusively for them, to build their self-esteem and give their families a break.
But your commitment goes even further than that.
We want to meet the requirement of 5% of our company’s employees being people with some type of recognized disability. We currently have 21 employees. One of us has a physical disability, but that doesn’t stop them from doing anything and we try to normalize their disability as much as possible.
You also travel to India every year. What type of volunteering scheme do you run there and what contribution can music and, more specifically percussion make?
Music is the universal language and the perfect medium for working on the communication, integration and self-esteem of all the different collectives. Moreover, of all the different musical disciplines, percussion offers the opportunity to learn the basic patterns fast, which enables participants to see the first results within just a few minutes of practising, making it more likely for them to continue the activity.
Our objective is to improve the living conditions of children in the poorest communities of Anantapur, in the south of India, through music and learning percussion. Through the Lupresti project, in collaboration with the Vicente Ferrer Foundation, with the slogan “A drumstick, a brick”, we equip families with the means and knowledge required to foster communication, integration and self-esteem, while also raising funds to build houses.
-- This article was written by Eric Morgado and was originally published in EAE’s magazine, Talent Alumni Review