Flamenco Music Week

October 28, 2019

This October, Berklee Valencia hosted its first Flamenco Music Week, featuring workshops, concerts, and the chance to learn from recognised guest artists. Magda Giannikou, the director of the Master in Contemporary Performance (Production Concentration), organized the week’s events, which took place from October 14-19.

For a week, students in Berklee’s graduate and undergraduate programs had the chance to attend workshops with prominent guest artists, including guitarist Jose Manuel León, singer Alicia Carrasco, flamenco dancer Rosario Toledo, pianist Alex Conde, violinist Layth Sidiq, and percussionist and Valencia faculty member Sergio Martinez. They learned about the different Flamenco palos (rhythms), flamenco dancing and singing techniques, and the tradition of the Maqam, the system of melodic models used in traditional Arabic music.

Flamenco Music Week also included four improvised concerts at the campus facilities as part of the Café Solo and Sobremesa series. These concerts featured performances by Alex Conde and Perico Sambeat on Monday; Jose Manuel León, Rosario Toledo, and Alicia Carrasco on Tuesday; and local artists Juan de Pilar, Tomás de los Cariños, Miquel Àlvarez, and María Márquez “La Chusa” on Thursday. Sergio Martínez performed the cajón in all three concerts.

The week closed with an extraordinary concert, when both faculty and students joined the guest artists onstage and shared their music with the Berklee Valencia community.