Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
All jokes aside (the whole "they get 1 day...the guys get 364 (actually 365 in 2016 since it's a leap year)), all lofty gender debates aside (pro-femen wrestling the anti-femen, etc.) and all debates on whether having a "women's day" is a good thing or not, I just thought it'd be a good opportunity to post some videos or links or anything else on some of the great women flamenco artists, and especially guitarists. As we all know, flamenco guitar is very much a man's world nowadays, but there have been and still are today some great female guitarists, many of whom deserve more recognition than thet get IMO. Here's a video covering many of the main historical figures (unfortunately, in Spanish only)
There are very few recordings of these artists of the past so most of it has to be left to the imagination or reconstructed on the basis of testimonies.
As for contemporary guitarists, my own personal favorite is Laura Gonzalez, who has achieved a fair degree of recognition in Spain I believe.
I also enjoy Antonia Jiménez but I can't seem to find any quality videos of her playing. Marta Robles has some interesting compositions but often at the fringe of flamenco "fusion" IMO. The sad reality of it is that they are pretty much the only names I know of as far as contemporary female flamenco guitarists are concerned. So hopefully you will post some other names and videos so that I can discover some more!
Cheers,
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
RE: International Women's Day and Fl... (in reply to Piwin)
As far as singers go, my top two are Concha Buika
and in a more traditional style, la Macanita
(just the beginning) or
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
Posts: 1743
Joined: Jul. 11 2003
From: The Netherlands
RE: International Women's Day and Fl... (in reply to Piwin)
The Gitanos in Spain and the South of France worschip the black Madonna,( also Maria Magdalena) it seems to go back to the egypt time and the worshipping of Isis. Despite of the Catholic church tried to get rid of the women, and telling bad stories about them, the worshipping of woman is still there and especially in the Gipsy culture a big thing.
The trailer of a documentary film made on the topic
and an extract of said documentary featuring part of a seguiriya by Noa Drezner
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
RE: International Women's Day and Fl... (in reply to Piwin)
Afra Rubino
Never thought I'd hear the traditional seguiriya escobilla played on a double bass, but there you have it!
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
RE: International Women's Day and Fl... (in reply to Piwin)
Belen Novelli, a promising young guitarist who received several awards during her short career. Sadly, she passed away early last year. She was 19.
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
RE: International Women's Day and Fl... (in reply to Sr. Martins)
Very cool. I love those thumb-index falsetas. Not too hard but always effective. The singer's voice is incredibly similar to Estrella Morente. Actually, I probably would've thought it was her if I hadn't seen the singer's face.
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
RE: International Women's Day and Fl... (in reply to gerundino63)
A friend of mine from France comes from a family where they all have one French name and one Egyptian one. Like Jean-Pierre Osiris Dupont. The odd thing is they have no direct relationship to Egypt. Should've asked them if they have some gipsy blood in there somewhere.
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
RE: International Women's Day and Fl... (in reply to Leñador)
Yeah I thought the same thing. Someone should fire that sound engineer!
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
RE: International Women's Day and Fl... (in reply to Sr. Martins)
quote:
It's his fault for bringing a crap guitar onstage.
lol. I don't know why it made me think of this
It probably says a lot about my appetite for heavy metal that this sounds to me just as "good" as it does with professional instruments
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
RE: International Women's Day and Fl... (in reply to Piwin)
I'll finish off with this research paper, just as some food for thought (though I realize I'm coming dangerously close to firing up a debate, but I assure you that's not the point!) http://www.nber.org/papers/w5903.pdf Most of you will already know about this. It's about how the proportion of female musicians has dramatically increased in orchestras after they changed their hiring process to so-called "blind auditions" (i.e. the candidates are hidden behind a screen and the jury is not made aware of the candidates' gender). In other words, if you can't see who's playing, you are much less likely to tell whether it's a man or a woman playing, despite many thinking that there are inherent features of how each gender plays. It's similar to how most people believe they can tell the difference between Pepsi and Coca cola, even if blind tests have shown that most people simply can't. Perhaps a similar blind test with flamenco guitarists would go a long way in debunking some of these myths. Anyways, just some food for thought.
RE: International Women's Day and Fl... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
quote:
That’s terrible. Do you know what happened? I can’t seem to find any report except the simple fact of her death.
No, I don't know. I browsed around a bit, but couldn't find anything either. Though given the way people talked about it, it seems that it was something unexpected, not the result of a long disease or anything like that. It's sad.
Printable Version
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread