2011 SPANISH MUSIC AWARDS. FLAMENCO GALA
Spanish music is flamenco
S.C./ Flamenco-world.com. Madrid, May 18th, 2011
Before handing out some awards, Carlos Saura said that “flamenco is the music from Spain with the most universal value and where it’s least understood is in Spain”. The filmmaker thus certified the sense of dedicating the gala of the 15th Music Awards to flamenco. And it isn’t that it’s been left out in previous editions, as the videos of previous galas showed with footage of Diego el Cigala, José Mercé, Niña Pastori, Enrique Morente, Carmen Linares, Paco de Lucía, Miguel Poveda… But it was necessary to have a Spanish act of vindication, respect and tribute to a kind of music which was born in Spain for the world, being Heritage of Humanity.
Estrella Morente and Michael Nyman
(Photo Academia de la Música) |
First, the compás. A spectacular ‘drumming’ of twenty-some box drums opened the gala. And their beating didn’t die out until the end of the ceremony. Proof of how important this instrument has become in the recent history of flamenco was the fact that Chano Domínguez shared with one of the percussionists, Piraña, his Best Jazz Album Award for ‘Piano Ibérico’. Well, jazz… flamenco. The Cádiz-born pianist, like Saura, didn’t want to leave without highlighting the vivacity of the flamenco phenomenon outside of Spain: “Long live the Spanish Revolution!”, he exclaimed. And it was cantaora Carmen Linares, with her Lifetime Achievement Award, who personified the tribute by the Spanish musical family to the colleagues who have made flamenco their form of expression. A nervous Tomatito was in charge of handing it out. And he emphasized not only her career, but also her vindication of women’s role in flamenco. The cantaora accepted it as a motivation to keep on fighting. Pitingo didn’t come to sing either, but to hand out several statuettes. And, among them, that of the Best Arranger Award which went to Joan Albert Amargós for his work on ‘Sonanta Suite’ by Tomatito.
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Carmen Linares, 2011 Spanish Music Awards (Photo Ignacio Evangelista) |
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While some showed their solidarity with the victims of the earthquake in Lorca, Javier Limón, the gala’s artistic director, took sides with the thousands of indignant people who were camping out at the time in squares throughout Spain, calling for real democracy. The awards he gave out were those of Revelation Album and Author for La Shica, an artist who was a bailaora, but shaved her head and became a post-modern copla singer. So she dedicated her statuettes “to a cantaor who was so modern that he was never in fashion: Enrique Morente”. And even though before twelve guitars and a Baroque bass they did a version of Paco de Lucía’s inimitable ‘Entre dos aguas’, and even though the directors of Seville’s and La Unión’s flamenco festivals shared the Award for Spreading Flamenco, there were then only eyes, ears and feelings for the memory of Enrique Morente. And his award wasn’t by way of tribute, but rather for one of his last discs, ‘Morente + Flamenco’, voted Best Flamenco Album. As his daughter Estrella said, who accepted it together with her brothers and sisters, “competing with today’s top music, Enrique Morente comes along and whisks away a music award for a new album”.
Estrella, Soleá and Kiki Morente. Spanish Music awards (Photo Academia de la Música)
La Shica & group, 2011 Spanish Music awards (Photo Ignacio Evangelista)
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Carmen Linares, whom he was friend and maestro to, knew that all too well. And on this special night, the lady got all dressed up to sing 'Danza nº5' by Granados, with piano by Melón and baile by Belén López. And following the break, in which hundreds of guests mingled in the hall of the Teatro Coliseum, came the main attraction: Estrella Morente together with Michael Nyman. Together, they have turned a poem by San Juan de la Cruz into the beautiful song ‘Caza al alcance’. And it will be included on the cantaora’s next album. An intense, emotional, hopeful requiem.
The gala continued, time went by and finally, the main awards came, the ones tied most to today and the young crowd which was at the door to see their idols. That of Best Album went to Rosendo, that of Pop to Macaco, that of Alternative Rock to Los Planetas… And among them, there were some who couldn’t deny their affection for flamenco, like Mala Rodríguez, winner of the Best Hip Hop Album Award for ‘Dirty Bailarina’, which Estrella collaborates on. How we would have liked to see that encounter live there! That one, and others which we would think of throughout the night, the people being there who were there, in order to link today’s flamenco with today’s Spanish music, when they have to, more than ever, beat as one.
Flamenco guitars. 2011 Spanish Music Awards Gala
(Photo Academia de la Música) |
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