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between about ten and fifteen I began to be seriously interested in Galician folklore singing and playing. And I began to play with the older people and record them. I found the school of música popu- lar, a Central Folque in Lalín, and began classes in pandeireta and the singing repertoire. Then I joined Xosé Manuel Budiño’s band, and from there it all opened up.”
“M His first album was released in 2011, he showcased at WOMEX
2014, he’s been touring internationally with his group, the quartet album Rústica with Cristina Pato, Anxo Pintos and accordeonist Roberto Comesaña came out in 2015, and now there’s his new solo album Lobos.
“The great thing is that in Galicia there are still older ladies who sing with their grandchildren and with their daughters, so that gener- ation hasn’t died. We who collect from them don’t do it to make an archive, we do it to sing. And still the part of the Iberian peninsula that’s the richest in living tradition is Galicia. You can find señoras who sing and dance, and it’s an exciting thing. It’s great the way there coex- ist real folklore with these señoras, who learned while working in the fields or wherever, and we, who are contemporary and whose lives are no longer like that. And it’s lovely the way it continues with us, with- out stopping. The generation of Galician women that are still alive, they’ve been through war, hunger, machismo, and for them to be able to sing in a family or neighbours’ gathering is a catharsis, a liberation. A work of art, like a painter does. That’s what interests me.”
He has reservations about costumed folklore. “The music of the pandeireteras was the music of the poor – they were campesinos. Below the rich people, politically and socially. So this folklore, that of now rich people dressed up in what were the clothes of the poor, playing the tunes of the poor, makes me uneasy.”
Another of today’s leading male singers, and pandeiretero, is Xabier Díaz. Over the years he’s played with a fair swathe of the scene, including Berrogüetto and Budiño, and with Basque trikitixa star Kepa Junkera, who has strong connections with Galician music and made the fine Galiza album with many Galician musicians.
“Historically, traditionally, male pandeireteros didn’t exist. It’s a tradition of mothers and daughters. But I consider that in the tradi- tional, popular, folk music of Galicia there’s been a certain disequi- librium between the visibility of the gaita and the rest of the instru- ments. From a foreigner’s point of view, it’s all the gaita. The rise of singers – Mercedes, Leilía, Davide and others – has changed the map of música popular, traditional music. The hurdy-gurdy in the last 20 years has seen a revival, and I think the percussion instruments have also needed this reactivation.”
So not only does he accompany himself on pandeireta, the larger, deeper pandeira and square double-headed pandeiro cuadrado, or adufe as it’s known in Portugal, but his band includes eleven young women adufe players and singers, Adufeiras de Salitre. His album with them, The Tambourine Man, won two Galician music awards this year and spent time in the World Music Chart Europe top ten.
“I wanted to do a project with young musicians – not amateurs, but almost amateurs. I didn’t want a lot of musicians of my genera- tion, with similar experience, to agree or disagree with. After many years in music, the difficult thing is to chuck away the thesaurus, but that’s really what I need.”
“The adufe – the pandeiro cuadrado – which they play a lot in Portugal, was much played in Galicia, but the pandeireta has many virtues, and is more visual, decorative. I gathered together two groups of girls, one from A Coruña the other from Santiago, to teach them to play pandeiro cuadrado. I realised that it had possibilities.”
He agrees that Mercedes Peón, Leilía and the raised profile of pandeireteras was a turning point. “Yes, very pioneering, and valu- able because the energy was faltering slightly at that time. I have a feeling that, with Berrogüetto for example, it was lacking enough voices, something more tribal. Now I’m tending to follow more the path of Mercedes and Leilía. I feel comfortable in that world.”
“On this record it’s nearly all dance music; we didn’t record any
alalás. I didn’t want any medium tempos, didn’t want to make a tran- quil record. It’s pasodobles, jotas, muiñeiras. Festive music. To restore the social function of the music seems to me fundamental. Not just the virtuosity of individuals; the music is everyone’s heritage, and part of society. We wanted to show this energy, this emotion.”
y grandparents played and sang and danced. Not professionally, but like the groups of men and women here in Galicia. When I was little I was often in their house and heard them sing. And when I was
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