Ara Malikian, violinist. Flamenco interview

“Classical music should be like flamenco”

Silvia Calado. Madrid, June 2005
Translation: Gary Cook

“There's a world out there inhabited by music, because it was inhabited by instruments, as big and wide as this one and yet so small.” A world in which, according to Ara Malikian, there are no rules or frontiers, only intuition and a willingness to understand one another. The violinist came from Armenia, from a classical background. The guitarist, José Luis Montón, came from Barcelona, from a flamenco background. Together they discovered their 'Manantial', a ‘Natural spring’ of music, a dialog which they have no desire to put a label on. A dialog which continues now on the new album ‘De la felicidad’. Flamenco, traditional Spanish coplas, Portuguese fado laments, classical, folk songs... each has its place on this journey without an itinerary, which calls into question the seriousness of classical music and the conservatism of flamenco.

How does an Armenian musician make the move from classical to flamenco?

My training was strictly classical. Even though I studied at academies, before that I had natural contact with Armenian and Libyan popular music. But I did very little with this all the time I was studying. And later, little by little, I went back to this music. I knew nothing about flamenco until I reached Spain. I became familiar with Spanish music and I fell in love with this music. At the beginning I worked in flamenco a lot with several guitarists and ballet dancers. And, after a few years, I still don't pretend to be able to play flamenco. At least I do my own thing, I don't really know what it is, and it more or less fits together with flamenco.

Ara Malikian

Like it says in the booklets that accompany your flamenco albums, “there's a world out there where music was created.” Is it all interconnected?

The good thing about flamenco is that it's a very cosmopolitan style of music. It has influences from all over the place, from many different types of music. And oriental music especially fits very well with flamenco. Now I know the flamenco rhythms, the bulería and all the palos, but without knowing this I'd put anything in and it went well, it was joyful, and interesting.

Recently I told Michael Meert, director of the documentary ‘Ketama y su herencia flamenca’, that structurally-speaking, flamenco is like classical music...

The truth is I think that you shouldn't view classical music as something well-structured. I really learnt to play classical music after having played flamenco, tango and jazz. You shouldn't take classical music so seriously either. Classical composers were crazy geniuses, and these days it shouldn't be the reserve of serious gentlemen, it isn't like that. We have, in general, a very distorted opinion of classical music, like something for elderly people or the intelligentsia. Classical music should be for everyone, just like flamenco or any other kind of music. To say that flamenco is like classical music... well, no. I think it's the other way round, that classical should be more like flamenco.

Is it a liberation for classical musicians to play flamenco?

Absolutely. I learned classical at the academies, but I learned twice as much once I started to play different kinds of musical styles, seeing the freedom you have when you're improvising. Classical musicians have a lot to learn from other kinds of musical styles.

Ara Malikian junto al Teatro Real de Madrid (Foto: Daniel Muñoz)

Did you have trouble getting to grips with the language and the coordinates of flamenco?

	"I still don't pretend to be a flamenco musician, I do it all by intuition, what comes naturally"

No, I still don't pretend to be a flamenco musician, I do it all by intuition, what comes naturally. I know that sometimes isn't right. Flamenco people are very conservative. Maybe what I'm doing is ridiculous but if it sounds good and it makes you feel good, everything goes. I don't like restrictions and rules, you have to be more intuitive. If it works, fine; and if not, it's no crime anyway.

To share this restlessness you found guitarist José Luis Montón...

José Luis Montón is one of the first guitarists I started playing with, and it's amazing that we should be playing regularly without breaks since before I lived in Spain, since 1998. I learned a lot from him. We have an excellent musical rapport. We don't define the type of music we make, but when we get together we know what's going to happen. And it fills you with happiness when you and another musician understand one another so well.

And from that meeting came the album ‘Manantial’, right?

It came about suddenly because we'd already worked together many times, I mean he invited me to play in his group. At first we had one tune, then two, then three... And after three years we saw that we had enough material to make an album and we went into the studio. The beautiful thing about ‘Manantial’ was that the tracks weren't conceived with an album in mind - they were conceived to be played live. It was an album that happened by accident, it had been rehearsed so much, prepared so well, played so many times for years - very interesting.

Ara Malikian

The sequel is called ‘De la felicidad’ (Of happiness), the album of flamenco and more things that you share with José Luis Montón...

Absolutely. Since ‘Manantial’ was an album without being an album, this time we decided to do something in the same line, but a little different. ‘Manantial’ was very intimate, there were just the two of us playing, it was like a dialog. Now we've put in a few more instruments, a contrabass and percussion to accompany us. Although there's still guitar and violin all the way through, the dialogs. Over these three years we played a lot of concerts and had plenty of time to prepare a new repertoire. And that's also why it was something that had to come along soon. We had a repertoire and we had to record it. It's in the same line, perhaps the tracks are more upbeat, there are things that are more Spanish like ‘Pena penita pena’...

The track list is maybe less flamenco than on the previous one, right?

Defining the tracks that went on the album wasn't a question of choice, the tracks were already around. I'd heard ‘Pena penita pena’ and I thought it would be beautiful to make an arrangement of. Later there are boleros... We've made tracks from other places. My opinion is - José Luis's too - that we don't like to pigeonhole things. It's going to be I don't know what kind of album. We just played everything that we like. We put on a Portuguese fado and it's also something very strange. I don't know how fado artists will react because in fados you very seldom hear a violin, and here a vocalist who lived in Galicia sings it, with a flamenco guitar and a violin. I think it's very beautiful. And Sarasate... who's been my idol since I was eight years old.

Why's that?

Because to a violinist Sarasate is like Paganini. He revolutionized music a little because he put Spanish folk music within the domain of classical music. And there are very few people that managed to do that with such a good result. In general I play Sarasate a lot, and here I do so with a twist of flamenco. I love nationalist composers that were able to take draw on their country's folk music and take that into the realms of classical music.

Was there a similar movement in Armenian classical music?

Yeah, of course. And on the album there's an example. But we've done it the other way round, we've taken a violin concierto by Aram Khatchaturian and given it the flamenco treatment. I was rehearsing one day, I had a concert and I was playing this piece. José Luis listened and asked me what it was, and he suggested doing it in a flamenco key...

	"There always has to be a feeling of fun about the music"

No hang-ups, right?

None at all. Just yesterday a friend told me: “We're ugly, but we aren't bad.” (He laughs). There always has to be a feeling of fun about the music, that's what we're here for. If we don't have fun doing what we do, better do something else.

How have you been treated within the flamenco scene?

I'm really happy. They called me ‘El Moro’, even though I'm not Moorish but well, I don't mind. They've been very kind, I've had a great time. Now that I'm working a lot in classical I also have less time to go and play with bailaores and to play real flamenco. The only thing I still keep up is with José Luis Montón. Let's see if I have time, I'd like to get back into it, even deeper this time.

Now there are a few other violinists cropping up in flamenco shows. How do you see the violin fits in with this music?

I see that it's an almost indispensable instrument for flamenco. When I arrived six years ago there almost weren't any violinists. Now there are more young guys that get into it and are doing a great job, some are students of mine. I always try to tell them they shouldn't attempt to imitate the guitar or the voice with their violin. It's good, but it's very limited. You have to offer something new with the flamenco violin. The violin is an instrument with enough personality to lend some to flamenco.

Do you have any other flamenco projects, or for the time being just taking ‘De la felicidad’ on tour?

We have two really cool projects in the pipeline, but we aren't allowed to talk about them. If only we had five lives to do all the things we wanted to!

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