Interview with Manolo Sanlúcar, guitarist:

"Flamenco is a scholastic culture.
Improvisation is a very small part of it all"

Silvia Calado Olivo. Córdoba, 2002

Manolo Sanlúcar is immersed in a personal drama. Through his guitar, the maestro from Sanlúcar de Barrameda has found what he considers to be a major discovery: a structured approach through which flamenco music is able to grow organically. Now he needs to give free reign to his find. After applying this approach to 'Locura de brisa y trino', which earned him the Premio Nacional de Música, the guitarist is working on a new project inspired by the Seville painter Baldomero Romero Ressendi, while continuing to work in more conventional areas, as seen in his composition of the music of 'Mariana Pineda', the latest offering from the dancer Sara Baras. Searching, Andalusian cadence, harmony, renovation, system: these are the key concepts to a debate that rages on inside his head but takes flamenco into new territory.

Manolo Sanlúcar in 'Medea' (Photo: Javier Hurtado)

Where are you heading after 'Locura de brisa y trino'?

Well, on the one hand, I've got a very special ongoing project in which I'm dealing with certain areas of flamenco that have to do with my own interests and my search for musical renovation, or avant-garde. That's my own personal drama. On the other hand, I still use a more conventional approach when I'm asked to participate in certain kinds of projects, like a ballet, for example. I take a different approach with those kinds of jobs, because I want to respect the script and the idea that they're working on. When I'm asked to participate in a project, they're looking for my style but not my work. I express myself in a different way that's more in line with my music. I'm sorry, my answers are often a bit long-winded.

Let's look a bit closer at those two facets. Are you still working on the approach you used in your last recording?

After 'Locura de brisa y trino', I composed the ballet 'Mariana Pineda' for Sara Baras. The innovations in 'Locura de brisa y trino' are hardly present in this ballet. I've already started working on another composition based on a Seville painter that most people don't understand but who I admire very much: Baldomero Romero Ressendi. In this project, he inspires the search for new ideas, and I'll also use my new approach to making music.

You've once again looked to an artistic figure for inspiration. In 'Locura de brisa y trino' it was Lorca.

No, Lorca wasn't exactly the inspiration for that recording. The tremendous presence of García Lorca, of his image and name, can lead one to think that the recording was based on Lorca. The lyrics used there don't determine anything; they don't represent a step in any particular direction or any kind of evolution. They don't work as a space that contains any definite or essential elements of the work. My choice of Federico García Lorca has more to do with him being a poet with whom I can share a large part of my love of Andalusia; this culture we share; this way of looking at life; this passion for a series of aspects of life. He's also a universally appealing poet, and I'd never done anything on him. I've used other poets like Miguel Hernández, for example. In that case, my work was specifically focused on that poet, although I didn't use a single word of his. I put his poetry within mine by being able to understand the motivation behind a certain poem or feeling. I tried to reflect in music what he expressed with his poetry, but I didn't use a single line of his. I'd say that that work was centered on Miguel Hernández, but this is just the opposite. I chose Federico García Lorca to put words to the singing because I'd never used him for my music. There's no way I can say that that music was composed for Federico. 'Carta a Doña Rosita' is the only track that doesn't use this new musical system. It's the only one that stands out from the rest, and it's based on a certain personal and artistic part of Federico. Oddly enough, I didn't use the new musical approach of the project or Federico's verse.

Manolo Sanlúcar in 'Medea' (Photo: Javier Hurtado)

What about your next project? What's the role of the painter?

Baldomero Romero Ressendi is a fantastic painter. He's an idol for many painters in Andalusia, but he had a lot of problems, he provoked many problems, and he has since been widely rejected because people tend to associate him with the Franco regime. Because I'm one of those people who understands that this painter was a genius, I'm very interested in working on a project that focuses on the man, with singing and verse that I'll write myself, like I did in 'Tauromagia'. The idea is that each track will be based on a painting of his. I'm going to choose nine or ten paintings and try to express the idea behind each one in a manner that reflects his own expression. He was also a great enthusiast of flamenco.

You always stress the importance of singing. Even when you talk about 'Locura de brisa y trino', you usually say that nobody would have understood the guitar if it hadn't been for singing.

Flamenco is the combination of guitar and singing. All the forms of traditional flamenco are based on the melodies used in singing and the guitar that accompanies that. Together, they make up the scholastic forms of flamenco. In this project, I specify (I don't like using that word because it's poorly applied) an art form, but it's an entire system. Traditional flamenco is based on a system: the Andalusian cadence. I developed a system that I started to vaguely perceive a long time ago; so long ago, that I still hadn't learned to read music. I had a vague idea of that sound and I could do things with it, but I didn't know what it consisted of or how to explain it. It was something that I felt so strongly that I just went on composing things in my own way, and, even after learning to read music and years of study, I still couldn't explain it. When I studied harmony, I began to get closer to an understanding, and, one day, I knew exactly what that idea meant and how to explain that sensation.

When I finally understood this approach, I established a system. It's like constructing a new building next to the building of flamenco, with a room that connects the two, so I can move freely between both of them. There's a door that leads to a specific area. It's not there to provide access to any kind of external element, but to provide access between the two. This makes it possible to create a kind of music that doesn't fall within the parameters of traditional flamenco, but it's just as flamenco as if the Andalusian cadence had never existed because it precedes it.

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