Vicente Amigo in Catalonia

Vicente Amigo chooses the Festival Internacional
de Portaferrada to present his most recent work in Catalonia

Text: Juan Toro
Photo: Pere Carreras

Catalonía’s oldest festival of music, theater
and dance this year celebrates its 43rd edition doing honor to the
central philosophy that gave birth to the event and the generic
subtitle that figures on the program: “An open door”.

For this reason the International Festival of Portaferrada in San
Feliú de Guixols is an event which has become consolidated
by virtue of its prestige and a set of values that make it unquestionably
different. And to the delight of flamenco fans, festival director
Albert Mallol is a man with tremendous vision in which Andalusia
and flamenco are always present. Past editions of the festival have
seen the likes of Antonio Canales, Sara Baras, Duquende, Tomatito
and Vicente Amigo among others.

Foto: Pere Carreras

Some wag recently wrote that Vicente Amigo es the natural replacement
for Paco de Lucía. In actual fact, if we take “replacement”
to mean the custodian of certain values rather than forms, you can’t
help but accept the idea. Because even though Vicente has the spirit
of his heritage engraved on his forward-looking psyche, he has never
resorted to sheer imitation as a stylistic tendency to characterize
or dominate his work. Vicente has been a fulfilled promise for those
of us who glimpsed between the strings of this guitar a devotion
to grass-roots flamenco as the musician demonstrated last August
17th in St. Feliú de Guixols, with a concert full of originality
and exquisitely tasteful flamenco music. Because Vicente is one
of those young flamenco performers who indulges in premeditated
evolution; deliberate, delicate and straight-forward – backed-up
by regular group he managed to captivate the 900 individuals who
filled the patio of the St. Feliú monastery to overflowing.

Freshly-minted Taranta and Soleá. Fandango de Huelva and
Alegrías from previous recordings and which have become obligatory
inclusions in his regular repertoire. And his most recent work:
“Un Minuto en el Sonido”, undoubtedly personal, with
the customary questing and discovery, the well-balanced compositions
that combine classical forms with the most updated material this
daring musical personality can come up with – flamenco guitar-playing
of masterful sensitivity.

God bless his musical soul, this celebrity of flamenco and music
in general, a man of his times.

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