The practice of traditional art must be pleasant in all disciplines but perhaps especially when singing. Through body awareness, we will develop the sensory perception of the vocal apparatus to put musicality, communication and the truth of our emotion at the service of the sung words.

With Teresa, we will travel mainly through songs from the north and center of Portugal. Since collective singing is what moves her the most, she will bring pockets full of polyphonic songs of women who, accompanied by the adufe, made ears buzz and fields vibrate. She would love to make the Mirandese language, Portugal’s second language, beautiful and in need, resonate, and in between lines share music from people who greatly expanded poetic, thought, and popular sentiment.

Davide will take a journey through the traditional songs of Galicia, especially from the area of ​​Costa da Morte, Pontevedra and Ourense. The protagonist will be the pandereta although the pandero will also be present. Dance is an important part of Davide’s music and therefore, also of this workshop.

In this workshop, we will work on the development of cross-influences between the Afro-Andalusian Caribbean string cultures. We will study various playing techniques and analyze different ways of approaching creative work from within traditions, using anthropological research methods to try to understand how these influences are assimilated and transformed in different cultures.

We will pay special attention to the phenomenon of “falsetization” in flamenco music, understanding it as a process of crystalized transculturation in which we observe the conversion of distant melodies into figures and phrases appropriate to local music.

The preferred instruments for this workshop are the guitar and the Cuban tres, but it is open to any string instrument.

The level for this workshop is intermediate / advanced

This workshop will explore ways of improvising and composing in modal music. Drawing inspiration from the vast repertoire of modal music, we will focus on melodic and rhythmical patterns commonly used in the music of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans, and we will try to use these patterns as starting points to create larger music schemes. A short musical phrase or rhythmic pattern can create infinite variations. We will use these musical “seeds” and seek ways to transfigure an initial inspiration into a fully-fledged composition or into a dynamic improvisation.

Memory and Celebration “If we want to find out why we sing, we can express that it is to create our own celebration, and if we can share it with many, it will have a dimension of unifying and merging ceremony. The important thing is to resume singing as an indispensable vital function.” Leda Valladares

The CIRCLE

The COLLECTIVE PULSE.

ORALITY.

REPETITION.

The CYCLIC.

The RITUAL.

MEMORY.

The SOUND PRINT TO RECOGNIZE OURSELVES.

The cradle of this vocal workshop is the western Mediterranean, bordered by the Italian and Spanish coasts. The proposal focuses on the repertoire of oral tradition from the islands located between them.

Livia Giaffreda (Italy) and Anna Ferrer (Menorca) will transmit the songs with which they are most in contact, in an alternating formula that will allow us to deepen into the tradition with each one separately and also in dialogue between both. A journey through work songs, lullabies, songs designed for dancing, polyphonic chants, which will take us to Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Mallorca, Menorca, Eivissa…

We invite you to bring the instrument with which you wish to discover new languages, in terms of melody, harmony, or rhythm. We will immerse ourselves in the traditional repertoire of the Kora and in the captivating sounds of the Mandé people from West Africa, which envolves countries that previously formed the ancient Mali Empire (Senegal, Guinea Conakry, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Burkina Faso and Gambia). Additionally, we will explore how to integrate and fuse traditional Mandé scales and sounds with various musical styles, such as flamenco, jazz, traditional Iberian roots music, and more. This workshop is open to kora players or any melodic instrument players, regardless of their level of experience.

One of our goals this year is to be able to assemble a Son Jarocho circle. For this, we will have to practice the accompaniment (Jarana), with any instrument we have for strumming. We will also have to practice instrumental melodies and prepare a good string team to support those who sing their verses. Obviously, we can also sing if we wish.

We will also try to put together a segment of Argentine folk music so that we can sing and dance on one of the nights of the gathering, using the same methodology: strumming, picking, and singing.

Furthermore, the string troop will be available to accompany different situations that arise in the various workshops, so it is very likely that we will have to assemble trios, duets, or a large string ensemble to support our companions.

The invitation is extended; come with ease, without pressure. Undoubtedly, we will work hard, but always with joy, to celebrate the gathering at our Main Festival.

Approaching movement is a way of inhabiting and listening to the body. This workshop starts with an authentic listening of the body, essential basis serving as our starting point.

For years, traditional music has been brought closer to the present and dance must be part of this process. Folklore is a social event, a meeting between people in the here and now. The starting point in this workshop is traditional Iberian dance and flamenco, languages at the service of collective play and that lend themselves to interact with other musical styles and all the musical diversity of this year’s Encuentro. We will explore the ways that allow the body to take shapes according to what surrounds it: rhythm, song, melody, other bodies, etc.

Each body has its own language and that is the richness of it. However, there is something deep within all human beings: the desire to once again feel part of something bigger than ourselves. In the process of this workshop we will explore ways to create a collective dialogue, find common directions and slowly create the movement sequences to share. From this spirit of community, in a safe and prejudice-free space, dance is created and the body becomes one more vehicle to transmitting the collective energies.

Listen to react. Listen to interact. Listen to integrate. Listen to simply feel. Listen to create collectively.

In this workshop, we will work on different rhythms and traditional styles adapting them to the bass, taking references or inventing them. There will be room for the ensemble of bassists, taking on different roles with our instrument, depending on the musical context and the number of participants. The idea is to transfer the different rhythms and genres worked on to our instrument and build the bass lines for the chosen repertoire, and finally, share them with the rest of the instruments. Walid Mahmoud will give some master classes in the workshop, providing the rhythmic and phrasing of the guimbri, and we will also adapt them to the bass.

Percussion generally has and has had in music an accompaniment function both in the traditional music of the Iberian Peninsula, in Latin American folklore, in Arab, Greek, African, or Italian music; but sometimes percussion does not stay only in this role, but speaks with its own voice creating rhythmic melodies. Each drum has found its particular way of speaking and communicating, drawing inspiration from the spoken language of the culture or ethnicity that touches them, or sometimes drawing inspiration from musical mathematics.

This year we will have as guests some regions that have developed percussion language at the highest level such as West Africa, Latin America, the Arab world, and the Middle East. The accompaniment function in percussion is very important to be clear and secure since it is the one we will exercise for most of our musical life, but little by little, we can open the language of the instrument and speak with our own voice. In recent years, many of the percussion instruments that had an accompaniment function have developed to unimaginable levels. Many times this solo function has been used to draw the movements of the dance, and sometimes simply for the sake of playing and creating a story with the drum. In this course, we will work from traditional rhythms both from the Iberian and Italian Peninsula, as well as from Latin American folklore, the Wolof and Mandinka tradition, from the Middle East, or Arab music. We will study how to introduce these new rhythms and languages to instruments such as the tambourine, the quijada, the pandero cuadrado , the cajón, the bombo legüero, the salero, the doholla, the bendir, or the riqq. We will learn to improvise with them to accompany dance or tell our own stories.

The advanced percussion course will be mainly led by Itamar Doari with Arab and Middle Eastern rhythms, Marcelo Woloski with Latin American rhythms, and Aleix Tobias with percussion from all over the peninsula and West Africa. There will be two groups of 17 people where the three teachers will alternate. Some moments will be joint classes between the two groups, working and exploring the possibilities of playing various percussionists together. Itamar will work on these concepts with the doholla, bendir, riqq and cajón. It is necessary to bring at least one bendir. Aleix Tobias will do it with traditional percussion from the peninsula. Marcelo Woloski will do it with the bombo legüero, Peruvian cajón, salero, quijada, etc… It is necessary to bring a pandero cuadrado and a tambourine at least. If you have and can, bring a bombo legüero or cajón.