Flamenco always has a story to tell.
‘‘The stories are simply the emotion that people feel for any particular song they sing or any particular dance that they interpret. And indeed, anything that the guitar has to say,’’ flamenco guitarist Paco Pena says.
Flamenco was a tradition given to him when he was born in the Andalucian city of Cordoba, he says.
‘‘That tradition is very strong and it’s based on the folklore of the land, but it is actually an art form that explores very much inside oneself to tell the stories.’’
It has its roots in the precarious conditions and discrimination many of his ancestors in southern Spain experienced a few hundred years ago.
‘‘It’s a form of singing. And as I say, people really just cry out their emotions, what is happening to them in their way.’’
Accompanying that cry has always been the guitar, the ‘‘instrument of Spain’’, he says.
‘‘The guitar was the companion of this song that emerges. And then, obviously, it takes a kaleidoscope of different directions and expressions.
‘‘And the two instruments, like the song, which is, if you like, the message of the culture and the guitar, they inspire the dance.’’
‘‘The dancers of Andulica were famous. But that is how flamenco emerges.’’
Flamenco, which is now recognised by Unesco as part of the world’s intangible cultural heritage, has a troubled history in Spain, where it was decried by the local elite and the Catholic church in the 19th and 20th centuries due to its association with the ostracised Gitano or Roma population and blamed for the country’s ills.
But by the 1950s when the country needed to stimulate tourism, it promoted flamenco to encourage people to the country.
Growing up in the 1950s, Pena began learning the guitar from his only older brother — they were among nine children the family — and he became captivated.
‘‘I saw him doing it so I wanted to do it. I was shy, but I picked up the guitar sometimes and I found it a really wonderful thing.
‘‘It was easy to emulate the sound that I heard my brother, or in fact songs that one hears people singing, with the strings of the guitar.’’
From there, all he wanted to do was play, so any opportunity he grabbed, whether it was parties at houses or with amateur groups and later representative groups from Cordoba showcasing their region’s folklore in other parts of the country.
‘‘We were a very poor family so I used to do just small-time things.’’
It drove him to work hard on his craft, continuing to discover the wealth of expression the guitar and music provides.
‘‘It’s just something that hits you. I became really very keen. I wanted to do what my peers [did], the people I saw playing beautifully, so I wanted to do that and more. And that’s really the way I was fascinated by it.
‘‘I was trying and really in love with it.’’
But at no time did Pena ever seriously consider that he was going to be a professional musician.
In the late 1960s he left Spain for London, where Spanish classical guitar was very popular. He arrived with a flamenco show featuring singers and dancers and was asked to perform a solo.
‘‘It was intimidating but I said, ‘OK, I’ll do it’. It went so well. It taught me a lesson.
‘‘I said, ‘well, there is something in this’, because I had never thought of playing solo at that point.’’
But London proved to be a city that had a ‘‘real respect’’ for guitar playing of many different genres.
‘‘It was amazing. They discovered, they sort of appreciated flamenco and admired what I could do. I learnt the lesson that if you work hard, then other things will come. And they actually did.’’
Pena, who still lives in London, has gone on to perform solo at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club and the monumental Royal Albert Hall in London, New York’s Carnegie Hall and the Concertgebouw, in Amsterdam.
America’s Guitar magazine judged Pena the best flamenco guitarist of the year for five consecutive years.
‘‘Coming to London and seeing that, actually, solo guitar was appreciated, that changed me. Then I decided I was going to work 25 hours a day just to prepare me to be good at that. So, I went everywhere.
‘‘It was successful, you know, very successful. So that was wonderful.’’
At all times Pena’s aim through his music has been to move people.
‘‘Because if I feel nuances in my music, I want them to feel them too.’’
With his own company of hand-picked dancers, singers and musicians formed in the 1970s, Pena followed a philosophy that any work has to project the truth of flamenco.
‘‘If I talk absolutely honestly, the thing is that I never thought of being a soloist.
‘‘I wanted to be with other people, you know, accompanying the dance, accompanying the song, just being part of the flamenco group.’’
The Paco Pena Flamenco Dance Company has taken flamenco into the realm of music-theatre, with regular seasons in London at the Royal Festival Hall, Sadler’s Wells Theatre and Barbican and festival appearances in Edinburgh, Adelaide, Amsterdam, Athens, Israel, Istanbul, Singapore and Hong Kong.
‘‘That has been another journey.’’
As a result of his performances in Europe, he was approached to teach classical guitar students at Rotterdam Conservatory in the Netherlands, which later developed into his role as the world’s first professor of flamenco guitar in 1985.
‘‘I’m delighted that I did that. I had to actually dig deep, even though I couldn’t read music.
‘‘I insisted they did. A lot of people have come there, even from Spain, to study and to get their diploma and so on. It has been a very positive thing to do.’’
The role helped him dispel the popular belief that only Spanish guitarists could play flamenco.
‘‘I believe it’s not a question of blood and race or anything like that. It’s a question of culture and geography. Emotions, attitudes that belong to humanity, not just to the people of Andalusia. That’s what I believe.
‘‘And so in Spain, those deep, deep feelings have been maintained to this day. And perhaps in other societies, they have got better at not suffering. And so they have forgotten that thing which I believe is just human, is not from any particular place or any particular race.’’
In 1999, he created a work based on another artist from Cordoba, the painter Julio Romero de Torres. Its seven-week season at the Peacock Theatre in London’s West End stands as the longest run of a flamenco show and a further London season followed in Spring 2001.
In 2002, he collaborated with theatre director Jude Kelly on Voces y Ecos on a show about the history of flamenco. Its success led to further collaborations and shows including Quimeras, a merging of Spanish and African music.
‘‘I have been very lucky to actually collaborate with people from different cultures, like in Latin America, like jazz, with different forms of music.
‘‘And that also gives you another angle that you discover how interesting other things are as well.’’
In 1991, his company performed with classical choir Misa Flamenca at the Royal Festival Hall. It went on to be staged at Seville’s Expo in 1992 and toured the world, including New Zealand.
Pena says the world of flamenco is always changing, as has the guitar. He sites the work of Paco de Lucia (1947-2014), a guitarist whose work was a ‘‘tremendous influence’’ on all guitarists.
‘‘He was faithful to tradition, but he also incorporated lots and lots of things that other guitarist geniuses like that had done before.
‘‘Obviously, his influence was dramatic. And he was ambitious to also incorporate other forms of music in flamenco without leaving the respect for tradition. And he was a genius at that.’’
Despite this, Pena, who returns regularly to his home Cordoba where he often rehearses his shows, says his style of playing has never changed.
‘‘I was honest, you know, I wanted to do what I believed. But, nevertheless, the appreciation of audiences grew. The singing remains what is the heart of the tradition. And so, flamenco has become very popular everywhere. I’ve seen that in my lifetime.’’
His work has been recognised with the Official de la Cruz de la Orden del Merito Civil in 1997 and in May 2012, the Gold Medal in the Arts by the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington, both bestowed on him by King Juan Carlos of Spain.
‘‘I mean, those are not really musical achievements. It is just recognition, for which I am very grateful. But it is recognition for being there and bringing something that is worthwhile to people.’’
His latest show, Solera, which combines the ‘‘exuberance and ambition of youth’’ of young artists with the ‘‘maturity and wisdom’’ of older artists, was being staged again at Sadler’s Wells just before he comes to New Zealand.
‘‘Because the young ones want to break all the moulds and the older ones, they have been there and they have acquired the velvety knowledge in themselves of doing things right in more advanced lives. And that, in a way, is logical because I am very old now and I appreciate flamenco.’’
The show includes young guitarist Dani de Moron, who Pena describes as a ‘‘wonderful musician’’.
‘‘He plays his stuff, I play my stuff. And when people observe the difference, it’s wonderful how appreciative they are. The guitar is in a good place now.’’
Travelling around the world to perform Flamenco in Concert in Australia and New Zealand does not faze him at all.
‘‘I don’t get tired of it. I’ve always enjoyed it. If I get a few hours sleep, it’s fine. I take melatonin to regulate the time change. But I don’t mind the trip at all. I’ve enjoyed it immensely when I’ve been.’’
The show
Paco Pena plays Flamenco In Concert at the Regent Theatre, Dunedin, tonight at 7pm.
