Galenvs is the musical project of the Cuenca doctor Marcelo Ordóñez, who touches the emotions produced by the coronavirus

If 2020 was the year that forced us to confine ourselves to the COVID-19, 2021 was the year that revealed what we did in that time that we keep to avoid contagion and avoid infecting the people around us.

In the midst of uncertainty, fear and even discouragement, many also felt a barbaric creative push as a mechanism to cope with the dark emotions of this period. This is what happened to the emergency doctor Marcelo Ordonez, of Cuenca origin with practice in El Oro.

It is music fan, as it calls itself, already had a project called radiozonica, from rock soft, an evolution of the Orion band that he formed with schoolmates dedicated to the rock heavy. Now bring Galenvs (Galen, from ‘galeno’), his solo project that was conceived in compulsory isolation.

After fulfilling the dream of producing an album with Radiozónica, a fusion of radio, medium where he says they learned the best of music, and zonic, for the Amazon, in his own studio and with his own instruments, Galenvs became a self-exercise of creativity to “pass the time, so that the hours of the day are fulfilled,” he recalls.

“When the pandemic started, I was working in emergencies and I had to isolate myself. Just as many people became depressed, so did doctors. When we received the first covid patient, it was a woman who died a few days later, it was very hard for us, ”laments the occupational medicine specialist.

“Since I couldn’t go home, visit my family or friends, I started writing instrumental songs … I had a small synthesizer; I thank my friend Daniel Salazar who brought this brand of French equipment, who provided me with the softwares and he encouraged me to try, ”illustrates the 43-year-old doctor.

The exercise of creativity really became a catharsis when facing the pandemic and how his own emotions were manifesting. The result was a five-song EP, with electronic sounds, reflecting his feelings about the health emergency:

Synthesis addresses the prepandemic, because the first days of the confinement were completed.

Isolated expresses how Marcelo felt in confinement.

Melancholic It was written in March 2020, based on the bad news on television, especially when death and the crisis of the corpses were addressed. “Although as doctors we can remain calm at times like this, the issue of death did affect us a lot.”

Persecution is the answer to this situation. “It was when I said to myself ‘I have to get out of this’, out of fear and worry.”

Air is the last song on the EP. “I think that Air it is what a patient who survives intubation feels, because when the tube is removed, he takes air again, it is a triumphant feeling “, the amateur collects.

This EP is the first chapter of his solo musical career, his cover letter. Marcelo adds that a second chapter is coming, with five more songs, this time sung and with other types of experiences.

It is not uncommon for the rock and electronics go hand in hand, as happens to Ordóñez. He says he grew up listening to the ballads of the late 70s and early 80s, which mixed electronic sounds and resulted in rhythms. dance, What Seagull flying high, from Madrid’s Ana Belén (one of her favorites). But it was when he heard a very popular British band from the 80’s that he ended up opting for synth sounds within the rock (what some call alternative rock).

“One day from the house of my neighbors in Santa Rosa, who were traveling abroad, I heard different music, from a band that I did not know; that music marked my way of seeing music. It was Depeche Mode”Recalls the doctor. “When I saw them on the show Tuning in, I realized that it was a band without a drummer, without a bass player, everything was with synthesizers and a singer … Everything that I knew as a band changed ”.