FESTIVAL DE JEREZ 2010. MIE MATSUMURA + ANTONIO CANALES, ‘SERENATA ANDALUZA’
The stage master
Silvia Calado. Jerez, March 4th 2010
‘Serenata andaluza’. Mie Matsumura: piano. Antonio Canales: guest artist. Leonor Leal: baile. José Valencia: cante. Eugenio Iglesias, Paco Iglesias: guitar. Bobote: clapping. Javier Puga: director. 14th Festival de Jerez. Teatro Villamarta. Jerez (Cádiz, Spain), March 4th, 2010. 9 p.m.
Antonio
Canales is necessary. He is so for flamenco, which requires not just refined artistic proposals for minorities, but also solid connecting points in view of the greater public and the media. We see perfect dancing, we listen to marvelous cante, quality shows are displayed to us… but seldom does the stage beast burst forth, that flamenco endowed with genius to radiate his aura from the stage and blind the audience with it. That’s how he returned to Festival de Jerez, where he hadn’t appeared since he brought his ‘Carmen, Carmela’ together with Lola Greco in 2005.
The delicate thing on this occasion, not bringing a show of his own but rather coming as another’s guest, ‘Serenata andaluza’ by pianist Mie Matsumura, is that in a matter of seconds he’s capable of eclipsing everything else. And it happened when he danced por soleá accompanied by the flamenco group. There, he brought out what remains of what he once was and what time has artists gain in the matter of synthesis. There, he made clear the definition of stage charisma... and of stardom. And, relating things, he also demonstrated how much that source has been drawn upon, his source. The crowd went mad just when he wanted it to go mad.
In the rest of the appearances, as in the final ovation, he was able to respect the setting he was in, to restrain and contain himself. He illustrated some of the pieces with piano with a shawl and touches, as he himself defined yesterday, of “classical Spanish flamenco”. Of course, taken more to expression, to a hand falling or a mighty gesture, than to body virtuosity. He also shared pieces and confronted his powerful figure with the delicate silhouette of Jerez-born bailaora Leonor
Leal who, both in a pair and solo, focused her baile in the subtle, the elegant and feminine flavor, especially with the bata de cola she used to sketch out Granados.
The star of the recital, besides the selection of scores by Falla, Albéniz and Granados, some adorned with the guitars of the two Iglesias and clapping by Bobote, accompanied
José
Valencia por malagueñas, as if tracing a bridge with the flamenco flavor that her hands and spirits suffer. Without sheet music in front of her, the Japanese performer did a laudable job, not so much for the neatness of the performance in itself, but rather for coming from so far away to remind us - as Cañizares and Mayte Martín did not so long ago with the Labèque sisters - that we have very rich and very beautiful Spanish musical heritage to love, be inspired by and protect.
Mixtolobo
Sala Paúl, midnight
At Festival de Jerez, not only new baile shows are revealed, but also sometimes music shows. The De la Frontera Series was the right setting to unveil the guitar face-off which is Mixtolobo. The soul of this instrumental group is split halfway between flamenco guitarist Juan
Diego and electric and acoustic guitarist Jorge Gómez, plus bass, drums, cante and clapping. And with scores by both of them and with the experienced accompaniment they’ve done for so many years for artists such as Tomasito, they’ve recorded and released the album ‘Frontera’, which is backed by Los Delinqüentes in the production. Last night was its official presentation and the start of a career which, depending on the word-of-mouth, might be really fruitful. Because there were few who attended; scarcely half capacity, but there were many who grooved to this cross-border flamenco rich in decibels. Never before had rock sounded so jondo, nor a soleá so much like rock.
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