The Catalans have stopped seeing flamenco as foreign music

– What is the 'jewel in the crown' of this year's program? – The show Al este del cante, performed by cantaor Arcángel and Les Noves Veus Búlgares [May 23, BARTS hall]. We co-produce it from the Taller, and after its premiere in Barcelona, there will be four or five more dates in various parts of Spain. For us, it is very special, because to some extent we commemorate the concert of Enrique Morente and Les Veus Búlgares in the Cathedral square exactly twenty years ago, for Mercè in 1998.

– The festival began at JazzSí, the Taller de Músics club on Requesens street, but in this quarter-century, it has changed location and even name… – Yes, that's true. We started as Festival de Flamenc de Ciutat Vella at JazzSí, where, in addition to Morente, our great ally, Juan Habichuela, Esperanza Fernández, Mayte Martín, Miguel Poveda... performed. Then we did it in Plaça dels Àngels, but outdoors it was a free-for-all, until the CCCB hosted us, where all the greats of the time performed: El Lebrijano, Chocolate, Paquera de Jerez, Agujetas... In 2012 we moved to the Mercat de les Flors and that's when we adopted the name Ciutat Flamenco. Flamenco with an "o", because we believe it should be said that way: don't we say "tang" or "boler" when we talk about tango and bolero? We were at the Mercat until last year. In this edition, we are spread throughout the city, with nine different locations, from the Palau de la Música to the Auditori de Sant Martí.

– What is the festival's audience profile? – Upper-middle class, the kind of educated people, with cultural interests, that you can find at jazz concerts, theater... It has always been like that. If you bring artists like Chicuelo or La Tana to places like the Civic Center of Trinitat Vella, you will get working-class audiences, but the truth is that it is very difficult for that audience from the metropolitan area to travel to the city center. That's why this year we have tried to decentralize. I think that festivals that receive public aid owe it to the city, and that's why we wanted to bring concerts closer to more social sectors.

– Catalonia is the land of Carmen Amaya, and has always had a vibrant flamenco scene. However, it is true that in the late eighties and early nineties, this music achieved a more powerful public projection than in previous years... – Certainly, and that was all thanks to the figure of Mayte Martín. But it didn't come out of nowhere, eh? If you talk to Mayte, I'm sure she will tell you that one of her references is Faraón, a bailaor from here who also knew a lot about cante and guitar from the previous generation, little known to the general public. In the period 1965-1985, there is a whole lost generation of artists, although many of them never became professional. I'm talking about cantaores like Diego Garrido, Jiménez Rejano –who did manage to become professional, but died very young–, or El Nene de Graná, who no one could beat singing por seguiriyas. These were people who had come to live in Catalonia as children. Also Chiqui de la Línea, who would teach flamenco singing at the Taller and at ESMUC, and who has been decisive for the entire generation of new artists that exist now: Rosalía, Paula Domínguez, Mariola Membrives, Pere Martínez…

– But in that resurgence of flamenco's prestige that we mentioned before, can we also talk about a change in mentality on the part of the public? – Also, of course. For a long time, a part of Catalan society rejected flamenco because they saw it as something foreign. It was thought to be music, a dance, and a song imposed by Francoism. Which is absurd because, among other things, flamenco predates Francoism, ah, ah, ah! This begins to lose meaning in the eighties, partly because a generation appears that no longer carries that burden of the Civil War, and partly because people like Faustino Núñez, José Luis Ortiz Nuevo, or José Manuel Gamboa appear, who begin to study flamenco from a different perspective, and give a vision not linked to national-Catholicism…

– So, can we consider that distrust dead and buried? – To a very large extent, but not entirely. There is a part of our society that will always reject it, but now it is no longer a political issue, nor because Franco persecuted the Catalan language. It is simply because there is a part of Catalan society that is languid, that is not moved by anything... and flamenco is so passionate!