f44 EXIBitionism
Andrew Cronshaw headed to Évora, camera in hand, for the third EXIB Música showcase of Spanish and Portuguese musics.
I
t’s like two big circles in a Venn diagram, with a rather small over- lap. There are between 600 and 700 million people in the world who speak Spanish or Portuguese as a
native language, as against around 400 million native English speakers. While much of the non English-speaking world does listen to songs in English, and their performers are often world-famous, there’s much less crossover of Spanish and Portuguese-language songs and per- formers; often the rest of the world lumps them together as just ‘Latin’.
But there’s as much variety among these musics as there is in Anglophone music, and the EXIB Música showcase and trade fair exists to bring them, rooted in tra- ditions, from both sides of the Atlantic to encounter one another and to reach out to the wider world. The first two EXIBs were in Bilbao; for this third year it crossed the bor- der into Portugal, to the elegant praças and narrow streets of the ancient, white-paint- ed, spring-flower-fragrant small southern city of Évora in Alentejo.
Celina da Piedade
There were daytime conference ses- sions, launches, one-to-ones, films, a mas- terclass and a small trade fair, mostly in the Palácio Dom Manuel in the peacock-graced park beside the city wall. The evenings brought public concerts, outdoors in the Praça do Giraldo and in the richly ornate, just-restored Teatro Garcia de Resende, fol- lowed late into the night by off-EXIB in the courtyard of the Palácio do Barrocal, and off-off-EXIB in the arched, coolly-lit music bar Mói-Te. In all of them the performances were hugely impressive, a whole world of great singing and playing.
Alentejo itself has a strong musical tra- dition, particularly for singing, and the opening concert celebrated that in begin- ning with the local traditional Alentejo singing group Cantares de Évora, leading into a special collaboration featuring lumi- nous singer/accordeonist Celina da Piedade, traditional instrumentalists Há Lobos Sem Ser Na Serra with projection artist Cristina Viana, well-known singer João Afonso (nephew of the famous José ‘Zeca’ Afonso), Brazilian wind-player Carlos Malta, and bandolim (Portuguese man- dolin) virtuoso Luís Peixoto duet- ting dazzlingly with Spanish frets-player Juan José Robles.
The continuum in vocal style between Alentejo singing and fado (which is often the only Portuguese music people know of, but the long thin country has a rich range of other musics) was exemplified when splendid Évora fado singer Mara, sister of equally splendid male fado singer Duarte, joined in at a lunchtime gathering with Cantares de Évora at their base- bar over local wine and cheese. Also singing, in exquisite three- part harmony, were the trio Kalakan from the part of the Basque country that’s in France, and Nano Stern, now a big star in his native Chile.
Stern – solo, just voice, guitar and a touch of Swedish sälgflöjt – made a strong opening for the first evening of showcase con- certs. Strong sets by Duarte and others followed, and last on the Praça stage that night were Kalakan, this time with their instrumentation of drums, txala- parta and alboka. Their effect on
the unsuspecting public of locals and tourists was dynamic, like rock stars, of which they’ve had some experience having toured as an unusual part of Madonna’s band. They’d be a big hit at any festival I can think of.
ost-concert, the off-off-EXIB per- formances in Mói-Te, staged by agency-and-more Ampla, were without fail special. French-born singer Viviane, with her quirky trio, made a very appealing and natural bridge between fado and chic French chanteusery. The agile interplay between exuberant singer Luanda Cozetti and bassist Norton Daiello, both Portuguese- resident Brazilians, in their duo Couple Cof- fee is miraculous. These Mói-Te nights also produced some perfectly-matched impromptu collaborations, including Carlos Malta on sax with Couple Coffee, Luanda Cozetti with showcasing Portuguese singer- guitarist Luiz Caracol, and Portuguese singer Sofia Vitória with Brazilian singer- guitarist Fred Martins. And at Palácio do Barrocal courtyard it was a pleasant sur- prise for me to see Murcian singer Manuel Luna, with whom I often coincided at gigs in Spain years ago, with his band including Juan José Robles.
P The location of next year’s EXIB Música
isn’t announced yet, but it’s an event that has been much needed, and as it develops will undoubtedly draw more programmers and media from outside the Ibero-American world – there’s so much to discover.
www.exibmusica.com F
No space to mention all the fine perfor- mances in the three nights on the outdoor stage and in the theatre (where the final showcase had to be moved because of rain), even though they deserve it, but some standouts for me were C4 Trio, a Venezue- lan cuatro trio of astonishing brilliance, in their first performance in Europe, largely acoustic but with subtly bold use of some processing to add tone colours, their three four-strings accompanied by an equally bril- liant six-string electric bassist; Mexican singer Zaira Franco in an impeccable set with her spot-on vocals accompanied by a beautifully balanced rock band with a pow- erful lead guitarist; the gorgeous voice of Mû Mbana with Guinea-Bissau’s elegant, water-gourd playing singer Karyna Gomes, and audience and performers joining in a joyful chain-dance round the theatre as Celina da Piedade sang and played Calimero E A Pêra Verde, a mighty ear-worm which has become her most characteristic song.
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