The tasty-looking London Guitar Festival is fast approaching in just under two weeks time, running over the weekend of 14th-16th May on the South Bank.  The excellent programme includes the great flamenco pairing of Gerardo Núñez and Carmen Cortés; the first UK visit for many years of the unsurpassable classical ensemble, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (LAGQ); the multi-talented Amit Chatterjee; folk singer-songwriter Chris Wood; and notable classical players Andrea Vettoretti, Amanda Cook and Phillip Villa.

Guitarist Núñez and dancer Cortés have performed together for a number of years (not a great surprise, as they’re married!), and play the festival as part of their own quintet on Saturday 15th May, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.  Flamenco-World describes Núñez as composing ‘enormously rich and complex music, without loosing the strength of the flamenco reference, and he performs himself with the technical capacity of a real virtuoso. Some of his creations are lavishly beautiful.’  Cortés, meanwhile, is described as ‘moving at ease between the classical flamenco and the modern one. She has been the first bailaora to make a choreography of a “Granaina”, a flamenco “Palo” with a free rhythm.’

Tickets for the performance are priced from £18-25 (concessions available), and begins at 7.30pm. According to the South Bank website, ‘when Nuñez and Cortés perform together there is a unique dynamic and heightened level of communication that can only come form the closeness of husband and wife.’  The mind boggles …

There’s also an interview with the couple on Esflamenco from 2007.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet – probably the foremost guitar ensemble in the world – appear on the Sunday night in the same hall, playing the UK for the first time in a number of years, after extensive recording and touring just about everywhere else, so a great coup for the festival.

Their programme includes a Brazillian slant in the shape of music from Jobim, Villa-Lobos and Baden Powell, plus their famous arrangement of Bizet’s Carmen Suite.  Tickets are priced the same as the previous night’s flamenco.

The full weekend performance and workshop programme is online at the IGF and South Bank websites, and well worth checking out.

The festival is produced by the International Guitar Foundation (IGF) – an organisation ‘dedicated to the promotion, understanding and enjoyment of the guitar, its music and artists.’  The IGF runs festivals in London, Bath and the North East, alongside summer schools in Bath, Cheltenham, Gateshead and London.

Here’s a Gerardo Núñez Sevillana clip (on an ad-hoc visit to his patio) to keep you going …

Birmingham’s biennial International Dance Festival is now in to its third week, and so far appears to have been a great international triumph.

There’s ongoing coverage over at the well produced festival website and also updates at West Midlands Dance to digest, but it’s worth noting the range of venues, variety of events and scope of artistic programming have really done an excellent job of bringing together a proper festival – not just a bunch of conservative shows in over-priced, high-brow venues, but a real effort to bring new, varied and genuinely interesting work to the venues and the streets for free.

In addition to the acclaimed visiting stage productions at Birmingham Hippodrome, Rep, DanceXchange and Town Hall (The Observer has already hailed Akram Khan’s Gnosis production as this year’s ‘most enthralling programme of dance’), there has a been a big programme of events across the main city squares and streets.

The Invisible Dancin’ strand has been running most days along High Street, Birmingham, at 1.00pm and 4.30pm, and continues until Sunday – not to give too much away, but it’s well worth trying to catch the flash-mob style emergence of an improvised dance movement along the street, accompanied by a growing number of excellent busker-like jazz and folk musicians, including the appearance of renowned international jazz saxophonist Paul Dunmall last week.

The big-budget Utopia drew good crowds to Victoria Square, evolving daily over the bank holiday weekend, and involved 40 international dancers from India, Russia, Africa and Spain, alongside the ever-tremendous fifteen-strong Birmingham-bred band The Destroyers.  Utopia produced a fantastic range of new choreographed dance, sets and performance over several multi-level stages, somewhere in between a trippy Alice in Wonderland meets Clockwork Orange, all enacted to Destroyers’ tracks and commissioned compositions from Frank Moon.

The flamenco workshops have also pitched local artists alongside their international counterparts, with Ana Garcia and guitarist David Shepherd working with the visiting flamenco dancer Olga Pericet through the bank holiday workshops, pulling participants from across the UK and Ireland. Olga’s Madrid-based Chanta la Mui play this Wednesday and Thursday at Town Hall.

There’s much more going on across the city with the festival running until the weekend – check out the festival website for lots more info.

Taking place at the DanceXchange at Birmingham Hippodrome, the workshops take place between Saturday 1st and Monday 3rd May, featuring a taster class for beginners, and a general choreography and body technique class for students with some previous experience, focused on body movement and expression rather than footwork.  Ana García is also teaching over the weekend.

FLAMENCO TASTER CLASS
Saturday, Sunday & Monday // 10am – 11am // £30 // With Ana García

FLAMENCO LEVEL 1
Saturday, Sunday & Monday // 11am – 12.30pm // £55 // With Ana García

FLAMENCO LEVEL 2
Saturday, Sunday & Monday // 12.30pm – 2pm // £60 // With Olga Pericet

FLAMENCO LEVEL 3
Saturday, Sunday & Monday // 3.30pm – 5pm // £60 // With Olga Pericet

CHOREOGRAPHY & BODY TECHNIQUE
Saturday, Sunday & Monday // 2.15pm – 3.15pm // £40 // With Olga Pericet

Download the booking form / flyer (PDF) here

A very exciting collaboration awaits us in May, with the arrival of flamenco guitarist Pepe Habichuela and renowned jazz bassist Dave Holland at the excellent and ever-innovative Cheltenham Jazz Festival, directed by Tony Dudley-Evans.

Pepe Habichuela certainly seems to enjoy taking flamenco in several different dimensions, after his Yerbagüena album mixing Hindu music and flamenco with the Bollywood Strings several years ago – more on that here at flamenco-world.com .  Dave Holland, meanwhile,  is one of the world’s most highly regarded jazz musicians, originally hailing from our own lands of sunny Birmingham, now living in New York, but a frequent and welcome visitor to our shores.

(Just before his Cheltenham appearance, you can catch Dave performing in a very different musical setting, as part of the new Harmonic Festival in Birmingham on March 10th at Birmingham Conservatoire).

Meanwhile, Tony talks about the May performance on the Cheltenham Jazz Festival website …

There are two concerts at this year’s Barclays Cheltenham Jazz Festival that I am particularly looking forward to hearing. One is the Cuong Vu Trio gig on Sunday 2nd May which I wrote about in my last post. The other one is Dave Holland and Pepe Habichuela, the collaboration between the bass player Dave Holland and the Spanish flamenco guitarist Pepe Habichuela and some of Pepe’s flamenco family.

Dave Holland is of course one of the world’s finest jazz bass players. He was born in England in Wolverhampton and was brought up round Wolverhampton, Walsall and Birmingham before going off to London to study. He first started playing in bands in the West Midlands in the 1960s originally in a three guitar band and he took up the bass when he decided that he was the weakest guitarist of the trio and feared he might get the sack! He was discovered by Miles Davis in London in the late 60s and joined Miles’ band of the time. He has stayed in the US ever since, but remains a regular visitor to UK including two annual visits as visiting lecturer to the jazz course at Birmingham Conservatoire. He now leads a massively influential quintet and another very important big band. There is also an octet which has an album due to be released shortly. But the project he seemed most enthusiastic about when I have talked to him during his visits to Birmingham is the collaboration with Spanish flamenco guitarist Pepe Habichuela and his flamenco team.

Dave and Pepe were introduced by a mutual friend Mario Pacheco and they have been working together for a few years now, initially studying and learning from each other through mutual respect, then doing some special concerts and finally making a recording. I have heard an initial sample of that recording and the interweaving of Dave’s bass and Pepe’s guitar is magical. They are accompanied by another flamenco guitarist and two cajon players, the rhythmic box that the player sits on to play. I know that Dave is very proud of his relationship with Pepe and of the work they have done together with only musical language to bring them together; Pepe speaks little English and Dave little Spanish.

Dave says on his website, “we played the first concerts in 2007 with a group that also included Carlos Cormona on guitar and Juan Cormona and Bandolero on Cajon. There was a great feeling in the group and I loved the music we made together so we repeated the project in 2008, adding Josemi Cormona on guitar, and then again in 2009 with Pirana on Cahon.”

Pepe Habichuela is a major figure in flamenco and is part of one of the great dynasties of that music. He began in the Sacromonte caves in Granada, but is now based in Madrid. He has worked with a few other jazz artists notably trumpeter Don Cherry and Nitin Sawhney. In this project Dave and Pepe concentrate on some of the most important pieces in the flamenco repertoire.

Dave Holland and Pepe Habichuela play the 2010 Cheltenham Jazz Festival
Saturday 1 May 2010 - 7:00 pm (90mins)

Cheltenham Town Hall – Main Hall
Tickets : £22 / £20 / £17

The clips preview both the Complot and Recital shows – more on those here

Ranging from more abstract dance to traditional flamenco and specially-composed musical accompaniment, even stretching to feature the famous El Quinto Regimiento theme, found on Charlie Haden’s Liberation Orchestra album and Coltrane’s Ole.

The seventh annual London Flamenco Festival has begun at the excellent Sadler’s Wells Theatre in Islington.

Known for it’s original and varied international programme, the festival continues until February 27th, and is well worth catching if you’re in the capital …

“The crème de la crème of Spain’s flamenco talent are performing during Sadler’s Wells’ very special two week Flamenco Festival.

From Rafaela Carrasco’s bold, contemporary flamenco style to Maria Pagés’ emotional rollercoaster of a show and the maestros of flamenco, Rojas and Rodriguez, with their sublime company Nuevo Ballet Español, famed for their heart-racing sequences, this is a unique chance to sample some authentic Spanish flamenco in London.“

Jenny Gilbert, of The Independent, reviewed the week one performances of Nuevo Ballet Espano and Eva Yerbabuena here, and David Dougill reviewed the opening night in The Times.

- The full festival line-up:

Saturday 13 February 2010 – Monday 15 February 2010
Nuevo Ballet Español

Wednesday 17 February 2010 – Friday 19 February 2010
Eva Yerbabuena

Saturday 20 February 2010 – Sunday 21 February 2010
Rafaela Carrasco and company

Monday 22 February 2010 – Thursday 25 February 2010
Maria Pagés and company

Friday 26 February 2010 – Saturday 27 February 2010
Gala Flamenca

Full info and tickets available online … we’d be interested to hear your festival reviews below!

After selling out for both of their previous visits to Birmingham, we’re delighted to be bringing the ever-innovative trio Chanta la Mui back to the city for two nights in May as part of the second International Dance Festival Birmingham.

Performing two different shows in the grand surrounds of Birmingham’s Town Hall, Chanta La Mui was created by three young dancers who have all enjoyed prestigious careers – Olga Pericet, Marco Flores and Daniel Doña – all of whom are solo performers and choreographers who hail from different schools of dance.

Their first performance, Complot, on Wednesday 5th May, is the brain-child of all three dancers and is related to different styles of dance and music, which have the same free-spirited aim: of going back to our roots to bring the adventures and memories of the past to life today.

This is followed by Recital, on Thursday 6th May, which explores the more traditional Flamenco style of choreography and performance.  Several pieces make up the show, in which dance, guitar and singing are the only players.

Tickets are on sale now, online via the Town Hall website or box office …

£12, £15, £17.50, £20

£2 discount for 60 Plus, under 16s, unwaged, and other disabled.

50% for wheelchair user & companion.

15% off* when you book for both shows

It just so happens this is perfect timing to coinside with our splendid UK Premiere of Tanguisímo! We present leading Uruguayan tango singer José-Luis Barreto with French pianist Stéphane Spira right here in Birmingham on October 24th, alongside eminent Birmingham-based flamenco dancer Ana Garcia and the musicians of Asín … full details on the performance here

(Click for large version)

Argentina, Uruguay bury hatchet to snatch tango honor

Sunday, 4 October 2009 – The Independent

Argentina and Uruguay, which have long fought over who invented the tango, buried their differences to earn UNESCO’s recognition of the dance and its music Wednesday as a world cultural treasure.

The United Nations cultural organization granted the sultry tango dance steps “intangible cultural heritage” status during a meeting of 400 experts in Abu Dhabi.

The two Latin American countries jointly submitted the “symbolic universe” of tango to UNESCO’s list of cultural treasures, setting aside a longstanding feud over which one was the birthplace of legendary tango singer Carlos Gardel.

Tango and candombe — Uruguay’s drum-based music that is part of its African heritage and was also honored by UNESCO — flooded Uruguayan airwaves in celebration.

“We are thrilled. It is wonderful,” glowed Hugo Achugar of Uruguay’s National Culture Office.

But tango teachers and fans in Buenos Aires sounded a more cautious note, fearing the dance would lose its essence.

“I fear that in going global, tango will lose its identity and cease to belong to the Rio de la Plata,” Anita Monteagudo, director of the “Tango Brujo” dance academy, told AFP.

Tango is intimately linked to the history of the Rio de la Plata, the natural border between the two countries, and the melting pot of poor immigrants and former slaves who settled in the river basin late in the 19th century.

Regardless of the cultural disputes between the two countries, Uruguayans and Argentines “are the same people, expressed in two nations,” said Argentine historian Felix Luna.

“I am thrilled about the designation, but they robbed us because it’s our cultural heritage,” said Jorge Vieites, manager of the nearly century-old Ideal candy shop, where dances and tango lessons take place each day.

Vieites said he felt as though someone had taken his favorite toy, “because I am a little selfish.”

Achugar was more conciliatory toward rival Argentina.

“We think it is fantastic that this was done together with Argentina, because our roots are shared,” he said of the sultry dance honor.

“It is recognition of our cultural contribution to the world. People listen and dance to tango today, even in Japan.”

A Japanese couple last month won the tango World Championships in Buenos Aires, dethroning Argentina, whose dancers have dominated the contest for years.

Paris alone has more than 20 milongas, as the tango dance halls are called, while in New York, fabled tango spots such as “la Nacional” draw a packed crowd of aficionados each weekend until dawn.

Hernan Lombardi, the top cultural official in Buenos Aires, and his Montevideo counterpart Eduardo Leon Duter both announced huge tango parties to celebrate, with singers from the 1940s invited as star guests this weekend.

“This is a tribute to all those who have supported the tradition over the years, who passed the poetry and dance down through the generations, as part of their oral tradition,” Lombardi said.

Buenos Aires officials called on neighbors to participate in a major milonga next weekend in the city’s working class neighborhood of Boedo to celebrate the UNESCO recognition.

Argentine singer Susana Rinaldi and Uruguayan musician Ruben Rada are set to participate, along with a slew of other artists.

The sensual cheek-to-cheek stride of a tango dancer, rose clenched between the teeth, has become a global byword for Latin passion.

In Argentina and Uruguay, tango is a proud and deep-rooted tradition of dance, poetry and song, closely bound up with the history of the region and kept alive by aficionados young and old in dozens of milongas.

Omar Viola, who chairs the milongas association of Buenos Aires, expressed hope that the UNESCO prize “will help support young people involved in tango and not performers who are already established.”

“Any recognition of a cultural treasure of Buenos Aires like the tango is good,” said Viola, organizer of the Parakultural Canning milonga, one of the nearly 80 tango dance and music groups operating in the Argentine capital.

“The bureaucrats are one thing and the artists are another. Laws and state support for tango have been limited so far.”

Thousands of tourists descend on Buenos Aires each year to learn and dance the tango, which has helped fuel Argentina’s economic boom after the peso was devalued in 2002.

We’re very excited to be presenting a UK Premiere in Birmingham this autumn, with the arrival of South American tango singer, José-Luis Barreto …

A captivating double-bill featuring the UK debut of acclaimed Uruguayan tango singer José-Luis Barreto with French pianist Stéphane Spira, alongside eminent Birmingham-based flamenco dancer Ana Garcia and the musicians of Asín.

Dubbed as “the alter ego of Carlos Gardel” by Le Monde, Jose-Luis presents a distinctive and dramatic interpretation of some of the most beautiful tangos, including Piazolla, Gardel, Discepolo and original musical arrangements by Spira.

Ana and Asín will perform a striking programme of traditional flamenco, original compositions by guitarist David Shepherd and a collaborative ‘vidalita’ with José-Luis.

You can listen to extracts of José-Luis below and at his website, and buy his album with Spira from CD Baby

You can also listen to flamenco tracks from David and Asín via their MySpace site

(Click for large version)

Flamenco-Birmingham Presents:
Tanguisímo – José-Luis Barreto and Ana García

Saturday 24th October 2009 – 7.30pm

CBSO Centre
Berkley Street, Birmingham, B1 2LF

Tickets – £15.00
Box Office – 0121 780 3333
Book tickets online at www.thsh.co.uk

Find the CBSO Centre here …

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