Omar Geles impacted Colombia and the music industry with his talent from a very young age. His skill playing the accordion, when the instrument was still bigger than him, gave him the name ‘El diablito’ and anticipated a successful path in his life. However, All of this would not have happened without the insistence of Doña Hilda Suárez, his mother..
>> Read also: Wilfran Castillo composed an emotional song for Omar Geles for his death: “I miss you so much”
The death of this considered vallenato minstrel on May 21 left a great void in the musical genre that now pays tribute to him. His family and colleagues remember the early years of his life, when he proved to be a child prodigy for music.
Hilda Suárez, mother of Omar Geles, took care of him and his siblings completely alone in a home where there was a shortage of resources, but not of love or talent. Although she did not know anything about music, she knew that one of her children would have to succeed in vallenato and that is why she was the great promoter of the talent of the composer who died at the age of 57.
“He almost didn’t like playing the accordion”Juan Manuel Geles, brother of Omar Geles, currently recalls, “but my mother did, because she comes from a musical family and she liked him to play. She took him out of the games and gave him the accordion. My mother’s insistence was what made him a great accordion player, he owes everything to her.“.
Hilda Suárez, mother of Omar Geles and who now mourns the loss of her son, anticipated the path that the singer and composer was going to build in the vallenato world. At the age of five, thanks to the education she gave him, Omar Geles already played the accordion with great skill and surprised everyone by being so small and carrying the instrument.
“When he was five years old, the children’s festival was presented and they gave him a medal of honor for merit because he couldn’t even play the accordion, he couldn’t even see himself singing,” remembers his brother.
“The accordion was bigger than him, he arrived dressed in white pants, red shoes, a red and white striped shirt, I was impressed by his clothes and the size of the accordion for him. When he gets on stage he begins to perform the airs of El Binomio de Oro, something that caused me admiration, and when he finishes, I expressed through the station’s microphones: ‘this boy is a little devil at playing the accordion’“says Mario Puerta, Colombian presenter and announcer.
Over the years, the great Omar Geles became one of the composers most consulted by his Vallenato colleagues, having more than a thousand songs recorded by different colleagues and also succeeding as a soloist. Although he was a great artist, His recognition was never relevant to him, it was always more important for him to be by his mother’s side..
