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Sonia Miranda, flamenco cantaora.
Interview
With her eyes closed
Silvia Calado. Madrid, April 2006
Translation: Joseph Kopec
-Is cante learned in a classroom like guitar and baile?
-Those who have talent and the instrument can be helped to
improve their technique and cante.
And Sonia
Miranda was helped by three maestros: Naranjito de Triana,
José de la Tomasa and Manuel Soler. The Sevillian cantaora,
born across from the marshes of the Guadalquivir River, in
Isla Mayor, found in the Fundación Cristina Heeren
the place for her talent and her instrument to be polished,
though she’s been singing since she was a little girl.
“With José de la Tomasa I learned to sing freely;
he’s a person who gives you a lot of freedom. And Naranjo
taught me how to structure the cantes; he spelled everything
out for me, he gave me discipline. They were two totally different
maestros. And Manuel Soler... he was the one with the whip,
as I used to say to him, a really demanding maestro I learned
a great deal from, especially about cante for dancing; he
made the way really easy for me”.
But training in the matter of cante is continuous. “You
never stop learning; you’re constantly learning. I’ve
gone on listening to some and to others, bailaores, guitarists...
And little by little, my way, I think I’ve gotten my
own style”. Contests, festivals, peñas, tablaos,
companies... There was something in flamenco that’s
captivated her since she was a little girl: “All kinds
of music caught my eye; I used to sing and dance to nearly
everything that came my way, but the thing that impressed
me about flamenco was the baile, when I used to see dancing
through bulerías, through tangos... above all, the
festive styles”. And from that childhood prompting,
she went on to experience other sensations. “Now what
still catches my eye is flamenco’s capacity to excite.
I love other types of music, but the sensations I have when
I sing, when I listen to and when I see dancing - I haven’t
experienced them in other kinds of music, though they interest
me a lot, too”.
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| "I’ve
made this record out of the simple need to sing and
get across things from within that I felt like expressing" |
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And the time finally comes to go to the recording studio
to give birth to ‘Garabato’, her first solo album,
“a dream I’ve had since I was little”. Guitarist
Miguel
Ángel Cortés, during a trip we did to perform
in the city of Monterrey, Mexico, “told me he was going
to record my album... and he kept his promise”. With
the Granada-born guitarist as the producer, they worked on
the album for six months. And in late 2005, ‘Garabato’,
an album with a suggestive title meaning “scribble”,
was released. As Sonia Miranda explains, “I’ve
made this record out of the simple need to sing and get across
things from within that I felt like expressing. I think when
a child scribbles something, he does it out of a need coming
out from within, out of the need and the thrill of drawing”.
That need and that thrill are captured in a repertoire which
“I’d thought about for some time”. And the
thing is that the cantaora from Seville –though she
resides in Almería – is a lover of the most neglected
classic cantes. “I really felt like recording a bambera,
which is a cante that’s not usually done, just like
the farruca, which in this case I’ve tried to make a
bit my own with the guitar somewhat out of tune, with a different
feeling in general”. Of course, there are also tangos:
“The truth is that it’s been really exciting to
do them because the lyrics are ours; we composed them between
all of us, each adding his bit and a lot of hopefulness”.
Bambera? Farruca? Tangos? Could it be that Sonia Miranda has
La
Niña de los Peines in the firmament? “Well,
yeah. It’s not that she’s my mirror, but she is
the person who most inspires me. To me, she’s the greatest
cantaora. In fact, the soleá and the seguiriya also
have things from La Niña de los Peines”. But
she’s not the sole reference; other classics like Juan
Varea also appear.
Sonia Miranda (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
The eight cantes on the record have fallen short. Sonia Miranda
admits that “a lot of cantes got left behind, and God
willing, they’ll be on the next album”. The cantaora
had intended to “record cantes de levante, milonga...
but Miguel Ángel then told me we should focus and that
it was better to do eight well, than fifteen so-so”.
And she listened to him, since it’s clear to her that
“a first album is just that; the first one. You finish
recording and you’re already looking forward to getting
down to the next one”.
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| "I’m
a person who sings with her eyes closed, and once I
close my eyes, I’m carried away to my world" |
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During the recording, in each take, what happened to Sonia
Miranda is what always happens to her when she’s scribbling
a cante. “From the moment I start singing, I’m
in another world. I’m a person who sings with her eyes
closed, and once I close my eyes, I’m carried away to
my world. And I get inspired singing and feeling the lyrics
I do”. The lyrics aren’t an embellishment to her,
but rather a key part of her cante: “Singing what the
lyrics say and feeling it is very important to me. A lot of
women sing men’s lyrics; I can’t. I can’t
feel singing “yo estoy loco de pena”. You can
always do some little thing to change it. I like singing lyrics
that come to me”. That is, which others write.
That the producer of her album should be a guitarist gives
an idea of just how important toque is to her. “We’re
in it together fifty-fifty. I think the dialogue between guitarist
and cantaor is really important”. And on the record
she establishes it with Daniel
Méndez, Tino van der Sman, and above all, Miguel
Ángel Cortés, who’s been a pal of hers
for years. She doesn’t skimp on her praise for him:
“Besides contributing to me artistically, he gives me
huge security and his music inspires me so much... And as
a person, I’ll tell you, he’s great”.
Sonia Miranda
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz) |
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With dozens of live shows behind her and a first solo album
as her letter of introduction, Sonia Miranda faces her career
at an easygoing pace. “I don’t set great expectations
for myself; I try and take it slowly and do things the way
I think they should be. I understand that this is more of
a long-distance race than reaching a specific goal”.
Projects? The Sevillian cantaora would like to “go on
enjoying what I do, record a second album, collaborate with
artists I like and that way, without realizing it, go on learning”.
The maxim guiding her in this process is “being sincere
with myself. Though I always look back, I try and sing the
way I feel, and sometimes that makes you get away from what
people expect. There are people who aren’t very open
to anything that doesn’t sound the way they think it
should sound”.
Maybe there should have been one last question... What do
you see when you sing with your eyes closed?
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