'This Week' 14/07/2002

What a week!

Spanish guitarist Santiago Moreno tells Ramona Depares about bringing his passion for Flamenco music to the Maltese stage

Flamenco is in my family’s blood, it’s an essential part of Spain. I’ve loved the passionate music ever since I was a small child, a mere eight years old. Of course, my sister’s influence had a lot to do with my falling in love with the genre. Every Spaniard loves Flamenco, but with me it went deeper. My sister, Maria del Moreno, is a very popular dancer and she’s simply astounding. I remember looking at her dancing and thinking how elegant and beautiful her movements were. I was immediately hooked.

The environment in Spain helped me get started, of course. Foreigners find it difficult to understand, but in my country Flamenco permeates the whole lifestyle. I mean, children will be playing football in the street when suddenly one of them will start doing palmas, which is the clapping part of Flamenco. You know when the music seems to stop for a small second and you can only hear the rythmic clapping of the hands? And then someone else will start chanting and before you know it you have an impromptu Flamenco performance in the streets. Everyone owns a guitar in Spain, whether they can actually play it or not. Whenever you visit a Spanish family, the first thing that will probably strike you is the guitar placed in a prominent place in the family home. And the instrument makes a rather popular gift, too!

For those who need a bit of background on this form of music, Flamenco is a genuine Spanish art,. It exists in three forms: Cante, the song, Baile, the dance, and Guitarra, the guitar playing, which is the part I love most. Gypsies are very often named as the fathers of Flamenco and at least it can be taken for certain that they played an important part in its creation. But also the popular songs and dances of Andalucia have influenced early Flamenco considerably.

During its golden age Flamenco was developed in the epoch's numerous music cafés to its definitive form today. Also the more serious forms expressing deep feelings (cante jondo) date from then. Flamenco dance arrived to its climax in the late nineteenth century, when it became the major attraction for the public of those cafés cantantes. Guitar players featuring the dancers increasingly gained a reputation. Actual Flamenco frequently shows influences of other kinds of music, as Jazz, Salsa, Bossa Nova, etc... The Flamenco guitar that formerly was considered an ‘extra’, just a background to feature the dancers, has today become a solo art form: the great virtuoso Paco de Lucia is definitely the pioneer of that development. Although extremely popular, flamenco has always been and will remain an intimate kind of music. You have not listened to authentical Flamenco if not in a juerga with a small group of friends, at midnight somewhere in the South of Spain, when there is nothing around but the voice, the guitar and the body of a dancer moving in the moonlight.

And so Flamenco became very much a part of my life too. There is a whole philosophy behind the art form, it’s not merely dance and music. At fourteen I won a competition for the guitar and decided to take it really seriously. But I must say that I don’t really like competitions: they are artificial, they do not give enough importance to the artistry and the talent of the individual.

I’ve performed in numerous countries outside of Spain, including Denmark, Holland, Germany, France, England and now – for my first time – Malta. I first met Rosanna when she got a group of Maltese students to Spain and some of them enrolled with my sister for lessons. We all made friends immediately, got talking and Rosanna invited me to take part in this event. Do I miss Spain? Hmm, really it is the people you are with who are important and not the place itself. If everyone gets on well together, we become like a family and it is all very pleasant.

For this production, I’ll be performing with another co-national, singer Jaime Villar. This is actually Jaime’s second time in Malta: Rosanna had invited him for the opening of a Spanish restaurant some time ago. Like me, Jaime has been in love with Flamenco ever since he was a child and he feels it’s in his blood. His family too do the palmas and his mother both sings and dances Flamenco. Jaime is a natural, he sings from the heart, with what the Spaniards call duende. Duende is like the soul of Flamenco.

We’re both enjoying Malta a lot. There are many locals who are afficionados of the music and we like the island because it has a lot of cultural diversity, almost more than Spain. Which is really a compliment.

This production, which Rosanna called Flamenco Trilogy, promises to be fantastic. There is the music, the song, the dance and the Amphitheatre in Ta’ Qali will be done up in a really original way with white fabric and light projected onto them. And the dancers will be wearing colourful Saris, which is one of Rosanna’s fantastic ideas. She loves to experiment and that is great because it keeps the art alive. The evening will start off with an interpretation of the Genesis from the bible: the effect will be lovely, along with the Indiany, oriental music that starts off very slow and then climaxes to a thundering peak. We’ll also be doing the part of the bible after the flood, which is a touching six minute piece. The whole team is really looking forward to the performance and I must say that I am as well. After all, there is nothing better than Flamenco for a successful evening out.