2007 CAJA MADRID FLAMENCO FESTIVAL. SERRANITO
/ MIGUEL POVEDA
A tribute and a lot of magic
S.C. Madrid, January 31st, 2007
First part. 2007 Calle de Alcalá
Award. Víctor Monge ‘Serranito’:
guitar. Ángel Muñoz: baile. Charo Espino:
clapping. Víctor Monge Jr: box drum. Second part.
‘Tierra de calma’. Miguel Poveda:
cante. Juan Carlos Romero: guitar. Paco Cruzado: second
guitar. Antonio Coronel, Paquito González: percussion.
Carlos Grilo, Luis Cantarote, Juan Peña: compás.
Diego Carrasco, Diego Amador, Rocío Molina: guest
artists. 2007 Caja Madrid Flamenco Festival. Teatro Albéniz.
Madrid, January 31st, 2007. 8:30 p.m.
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Serranito (Photo: Daniel
Muñoz) |
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A night of prizes and wonders. The 2007
Calle de Alcalá Award was given to Víctor
Monge ‘Serranito’; in the words of critic
Ángel Álvarez Caballero, “wise hands”,
“furiously self-taught”, “with difficult,
complex music”, “Madrilenian”. And the
touched prizewinner responded with an “I’m
going to keep it close to my heart”. They asked
him for flamenco and he immediately sat down and played
flamenco, still struggling with his nerves. He traced
a route through his work, from the taranta ‘Cazorla’
to the soleá ‘Paseando por Triana’,
from the granaína ‘Sueña La Alhambra’
to ‘Romance para un poeta’, and stopping,
now settled down, to recover an old-time farruca which
sparked an ovation from the audience. He invited Córdoba-born
bailaor Ángel
Muñoz to sketch heel tapping with a tanguillo
air, with impeccable classical design of subtle musicality.
With his clapping, that of Charo Espino and a box drum
base, Serranito led the performance to its end por alegrías
and bulerías. He was so at ease that he even sang
some lyrics: “Forgive me for this copla, but I feel
like it and I know that Miguel Poveda isn’t going
to get angry”. Just the opposite, since right in
the middle of his concert, the cantaor didn’t forget
to emphasize that “it’s a privilege to share
tonight with maestro Serranito”.
This time Miguel
Poveda came to the Caja Madrid Festival - “which
always brings me good luck” - with ‘Tierra
de calma’, that album inspired by Seville which
guitarist Juan
Carlos Romero has helped him to shape. Eva Yerbabuena
and Dorantes weren’t there like at the magical premiere
at Bienal 2006, but Rocío
Molina and Diego Amador contributed a different charming
version of the matter. Accompanied by the elegant, personal
guitar of the Huelva-born artist, plus Paco Cruzado’s
contribution on second guitar, he reeled off the pearls
from the album. He started off with nearly a whisper in
the farruca giving the album its name, his voice now in
tune, to continue by going with the flow of the malagueña
and fandangos abandolaos of ‘Calle del mar’.
And winning over an entirely enthusiastic crowd. Before
going on with his new record, he stopped to sing popular
cantiñas, reaffirming himself as a cantaor of principles.
Miguel Poveda (Photo:
Daniel Muñoz) |
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And he got back to the album with ‘Náufragos
del hambre’, a soleá which rubs salt in the
wound of the social problem of immigration. He sang it
with such feeling and quality as a performer that the
one thousand seats in the theater shook, including the
one taken up by Carmen
Linares. From the maestra, following the bulerías
‘Como la luna en el agua’, he borrowed the
toná ‘Canto de la resignación’.
And coming out to dance to it with all the lightness she
is capable of was Málaga-born Rocío Molina.
That special something of hers visually captured the roads
taken in the air by Miguel Poveda’s cante. Then
Diego
Amador took a seat at the grand piano, the bailaora
sought out an impossible foreshortening and the cantaor
rocked them por sevillanas. Piano and voice joined hands
por levante, marking the show’s dynamics from top
to bottom, from the inside outwards. And the extroversion
returned with a copla potpourri, a genre he masters perfectly.
As Martirio said in a recent interview, “my favorite
copla singer is Miguel Poveda”. But there was still
one surprise left; the face-off in the ring with Diego
Carrasco, whose freshness, whose flavor, whose compás,
whose charm... is soaked up by the cantaor from time to
time. He finishes the concert, which is now a real celebration,
with the tangos ‘Buenas intenciones’, and
again amidst friends, with an unplugged fiestecita por
bulerías which Carrasco introduced in gypsy dialect.
The theater broke out in unanimous applause. And the cantaor
gave away an encore por seguiriyas to everyone, and to
a specific person, filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, a
bulerías version of ‘Encadenados’ from
his soundtrack. Picture perfect, it was picture perfect.
Photo
gallery. Festival Caja Madrid 2007.
January 31th
Click the images to enlarge |
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| Miguel
Poveda, Juan Carlos romero and Rocío
Molina
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
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Diego
Carrasco and Rocío Molina
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz) |
Miguel
Poveda
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz) |
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| Juan
Carlos Romero
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz)
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Diego
Carrasco
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz) |
Miguel
Poveda
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz) |
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