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TOMATITO. ‘SONANTA
SUITE’. SEVILLE'S 2004 BIENAL DE FLAMENCO
The Little Queen Ant
Silvia Calado. Seville, September 6th,
2004
Photos: Daniel Muñoz
‘Sonanta Suite’. Tomatito:
concert guitar. Cádiz Symphony orchestra, conducted
by Joan Albert Amargós. Paquete: guitar and mandola.
Diego Amador: bass and mandola. Ángeles Fernández:
cante. Lucky Losada: percussion. Bernardo Parrilla: violin.
Seville's 2004 Bienal de Flamenco. Maestranza Theater. Seville,
September 6th, 2004. 9 p.m.
Tomatito with Joan Albert
Amargós |
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Following nearly a week of training on stages unfitting for
the great flamenco festival - which, on top of it all, has
turned twenty-five years old -, Seville's Bienal de Flamenco
kicks off its thirteenth edition. And it does so, now situated
at the Maestranza Theater - the Sevillian opera palace -,
with Tomatito's flamenco guitar, to whose service conductor
Joan Albert Amargós has put a symphony orchestra -
in this case, that of Cádiz - in the show that has
been named ‘Sonanta Suite’. There are five flamenco
pieces in which the Almería-born guitarist lets his
music get wrapped up and enhanced by violins, contrabasses,
cellos, trombones, harp, kettledrums... And, unlike other
similar experiences, the exquisite work of Joan Albert Amargós
manages not only to make an appoggiatura for the guitar or
a way to highlight it, but to create a prolongation of flamenco
art's reigning instrument.
The concert, which has already been performed on stages such
as Cordova's Great Theater and Barcelona's Auditori, begins
through soleá. The guitar is placed in the foreground
and the orchestra daydreams with astounding naturalness starting
from its flourishes. And Amargós applies all the flamenco
knowledge he possesses to the orchestra's discipline, to put
it at the service of a soloist of an ‘undisciplined’
genre. From the minimum of a note held on the violin, to the
magnificence of the conjunction of strings, winds and percussions,
everything reveals genius. The taranta is sung by Ángeles
Fernández, Tomatito's daughter, for the time being,
a cantaora with sweet registers making her début. The
guitar is plethoric. The expression of the ‘sonantero’
is truly pleasurable, feeling, as he says, like “a little
ant” amidst so big an instrumental display. And from
miner melancholy, to the extroversion of the bulería.
A muffled strumming makes the call and the orchestra becomes
flamenco, flamenco. The conductor sketches out the roads in
the air. And everyone lives a genuine music fest.
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Tomatito with his daughter
Ángeles Fernández |
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The concert continues to the tango beat, which the orchestra
guides with a beautiful introduction. Everything leads to
‘¿Dónde está tu cariño?’,
the song that has become a letter of presentation for the
album ‘Aguadulce’.
The orchestration intrinsically holds all the keys to jondo
music. And it therefore plays... but also knows how to rest
and to get back in. That is what happens in the ballad ‘Bir
Omurluk Misafir’, fruit of Tomatito's collaboration
with Turkish musician Erkhan Ogur and already included on
the previous album ‘Paseo
de los castaños’. The song turns out exalted,
very beautiful, like a full-length film about love... and
Tomatito flies on top of a cloud. And the concert is now coming
to an end, and does so with all the expressive display allowed
by tangos, of the kind with such a catchy chorus like the
one that says “beautiful voice of he who sings and tears
his throat against infinity”. The orchestra grows. Tomatito,
even more so. And the theater - only half full (perhaps because
this last-minute extension of the bill has caught the public
unawares) - bursts into applause, calling for an encore with
a standing ovation, as it had already done in the first part
of the concert. Yes, Tomatito and Sextet (Paquete, Diego
Amador, Bernardo Parrilla, Lucky Losada...) had already
played their usual repertoire for an hour, before the orchestra
took their seats. You know, the taranta ‘Macael’,
the rumba ‘La Vacilona’, the bulerías so
dotted with Camarón de la Isla... What better way to
warm up and win over the crowd, who were devoted minute by
minute to this concert which, together with that of Paco Cepero
on October 4th, is the only solo guitar one to be held on
the festival's main stage. Ah... And while all of this was
happening at the Sevillian bullring, also premiering at the
Superior Conservatory of Music was ‘Música y
pasos de pasión’ ('Music and Steps of Passion'),
a show by José Luis Ortiz Nuevo dedicated to the saeta,
the Andalusian people's religious cante. Since mere mortals
cannot be everywhere at the same time as of yet, let's leave
it to our imagination.
magazine@flamenco-world.com
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