Interview with David Peña 'Dorantes'

The presentation of the eighth edition of the
prestigious Caja de Madrid festival took place
in Madrid on January 27th with the presence of
some of the artists whose shows are included in
the program. One of them was David Peña
‘Dorantes’ of Lebrija, from the dynasty
of the Peñas who is to offer his work “Voz
y Marfil” on Saturday, February 19th, with
the special collaboration of singer Esperanza
Fernández.

Greece, Japan, Germany, Cuba…the young maestro
has brought his personal vision of flamenco on
the piano to some of the world’s most important
theaters, but his perspective never wanders far
from the roots. In David’s family his father,
guitarist Pedro Peña and uncle Juan Peña
‘El Lebrijano’ are noteworthy, as
are Fernanda and Bernarda de Utrera, Lebrijano,
Turronero, Gaspar de Utrera and the late Pedro
Bacán, just to mention some of the professionals.
A few hours before this interview was to be published,
we received the sad news of the passing of María
Fernández Granados “La Perrata”,
grandmother of Dorantes and one of the last flamenco
singers of an era that is coming to an end.

“Johan
Sebastian Bach has some things that are very flamenco”

How does your famous
family influence what you do, the responsibility
of being a Peña?
It’s not so much the weight of responsibility
as being conscious of the fact that I’ve
learned so much from the family, and had the privilege
of being born into this tradition…there’s
a certain sense of responsibility, but I dwell
more on thinking what I’ve learned from
them, trying to respect what they’ve taught
me.

Is it possible to play
flamenco on the piano?
Of course…piano, flute, strings…

Isn’t is sometimes
little more than the imitation of a guitar?
That comes through occasionally, but I try not
to imitate the guitar. Sometimes you have to create
new things on the piano in order to express what
is only found in flamenco, there are classic techniques
that are no good for flamenco.

With a guitar accompanying,
the cante always leads…does it work that way
with piano, or does the singer sing to the music
you play?
It’s not different from guitar, the piano
follows the singer. You’re free to add measures,
play falsetas, improvise. The singer sings and
you have to be on your toes.

And
you have the advantage of knowing the cante…
Of course, you have to…
For guitar, there’s your father,
and cante also comes from the family, but you
don’t pick up piano like that…
My father played the piano, and at my grandmother’s
house, La Perrata, there was a piano. When I was
small I used to play with it and it drove them
all crazy. Later on in Seville my father enrolled
me in the conservatory, at the same time I was
playing guitar.

Was it your intention
to become a guitarist at that time?
I planned on being a guitarist until I discovered
the piano. Then afterwards I kept playing guitar
to be able to buy myself a piano.

Do you still enjoy an
old-style down-home flamenco fiesta with guitar,
singing and dance? Because in your house, it would
almost be hard to avoid.
Yes, and that’s part of the whole thing,
I spend a lot of time at the piano, with my machines,
and once in a while you need a good fiesta to
charge the batteries, I think it’s important,
I need that.

“I kept playing
guitar to be able to buy myself a piano”

Your brother Pedro is
a guitarist…have you done things together?
Oh yes, we have…in the Bienal of 1990 we worked
up something interesting, looking for a way to
combine the different textures of guitar and piano.
Now we’re producing, and doing some very
nice things. He also plays for my uncle Juan [Lebrijano].

A lot of flamenco pianists
have cropped up…Pedro Ricardo Miño, Sergio
Monroy…
I think it’s great…and before, there was
Pepe Romero, Arturo Pavón who played for
Caracol and imitated the guitar and the voice
too, especially Pepe Romero used to imitate the
sound of a guitar, and he based his work on Niño
Ricardo.

In addition to Esperanza
Fernández, what other singers do you accompany?
There’s Rafael de Utrera, Tomás de
Perrate, my father too, José de Lebrija…

Do
you mostly compose free-style, or are you always
thinking if something is soleá, siguiriya
or whatever?
There’s no reason for that, sometimes I’m
thinking of a specific form, but not necessarily,
I just let it flow without fitting the music into
any particular ‘palo’, I don’t
put that much stock in the form, flamenco doesn’t
come from the outline of a soleá, it comes
from the soul – the spirit of the music
is what gives it the flamenco charisma more than
any form.

How do you define what
is, and is not flamenco? Is that even possible?
It’s complicated…a kind of music…how
can you describe it? It’s something you
can tell, and feel, sometimes in other kinds of
music that have nothing to do with flamenco there
are brief moments and suddenly you think “that’s
flamenco”, not because of any particular
harmony or rhythm, but something you noticed that
gave you the flamenco feeling. Johann Sebastian
Bach has some things that are very flamenco, there
are many things.

Do you draw inspiration
from classical music?
Yes, I listen to a lot of classical music, I’m
very interested in cuartets, chamber music, also
Ravel, Stravinski…I listen to a lot of that.

“I was
born into a flamenco family, it’s like my
skin, I can’t take it off”

Is there any such thing
as “new flamenco”?
I’d say there isn’t..there have been
advances, but new flamenco doesn’t exist
as far as I can see. For something to be new,
it has to be a creation and what’s being
done today is based on what came before, just
taking it a step further, advancing it. I make
music and consider myself a musician, and I was
born into a flamenco family, it’s like my
skin, I can’t take it off, it’s unavoidable.
But I get bored and feel the need to draw from
other kinds of music, other tendencies.

On your records you
also include voice, not only piano…
Yes, I like it, I really like cante…

Is there another recording
on the horizon?
Yes, I have a lot of material in the works, but
I’m a little slow, not in composing, but
because I take on a lot of commissioned work,
there’s a Greek thing I’m involved
in, films, various productions, and my own work
gets put on the back burner, but now I’m
picking it up again and hope to record before
long.

Your own first record,
Orobroy, was a hard act to follow…people really
liked that record.
Yes, at that time the record companies were doing
better and there was a lot of promotion.

Was Orobroy more popular
than Sur?
Yes, it’s possible, but I think it was because
Sur reached a smaller audience, there was much
less promotion.

Aside
from the recordings, you’ve created some
shows such as this”Voz y Marfil”.
That’s right, I really like to do this,
in this case with Esperanza, we’ve always
done shows together, both hers and mine, and we
decided to mount this presentation. I believe
much more in concerts and day to day performances
than in recordings, although it’s true that
records are like books and they’re there
forever. But I prefer live experiences with other
musicians.

Where do you mostly
move these days? You’ll be at the Caja de
Madrid festival, but do you fare better in Spain
or abroad?
It’s not easy, there ought to be more contracts,
you still don’t see much flamenco piano
outside Spain, it’s hard to make people
realize that the piano can also be flamenco. But
even so, I work much more abroad than in Spain,
it’s a question of educating the organizers
of this kind of festival. Each day there are more
of us, we’re moving forward and looking
for our niche.