An endless culture | Culture

Fernando de la Morena said it last night, in emotional words dedicated to José Luis Gálvez Cabrera: "Flamenco, this culture is so sublime and so endless". Good proof of this was this Festival Círculo Flamenco de Madrid, whose first edition was organized in memory of Gálvez, who died at the end of last year. A founding member of Círculo, a great flamenco aficionado and connoisseur, his work as a programmer, writer and lecturer made it possible to make known in Madrid a large number of artists, especially from Jerez. Posthumously, he was awarded the 1st Distinction of the Círculo Flamenco de Madrid.

De Jerez were the majority of artists who composed the poster, both to the cante, as to the toque and the compass. The youngest was opened by Jesús Méndez, from the neighborhood of La Plazuela. We were able to see Jesus recently with Israel Galván at the opening of the last edition of the Seville Biennial, filling with its single presence and its bulerías to stick dry a scene as impressive as that of the bullring of the Maestranza. On this occasion also began to dry stick, by tonás. The silence that this cante requires was interrupted several times by the noise coming from the dressing rooms. Behind the scenes, with the guitar, Diego del Morao He pointed the tone several times so that he would search again without losing the tuning. In the face of difficulties, great artists grow, and that is what Méndez did, coming up in every third.

Diego el Cabrillero, from Utrera, sang for soleá and cantiñas honoring the cante of his land: dry, deep and without fanfare. The old style of Antonio Moya was the ideal for this cantaor who brings distant echoes. A touch of rancid and brilliant Jerez school is the one that Domingo Rubichi deployed to accompany Luis Moneo, a genuine champion of La Plazuela, better in the seguiriya than in the malagueña. Cancanilla de Málaga, from Madrid, adopted in the bulería por soleá his impeccable sense of compás and his interpretative originality. It is grateful that, as the president of the Festival, Carlos Martín Ballester, pointed out, "an important part of the activities and programming of the Flamenco Circle of Madrid is to claim and make known artists who, for different reasons, have disappeared from the programs ".

And to close, Fernando de la Morena, from Jerez in the Santiago neighborhood and Antonio Reyes, from Chiclana de la Frontera. Two completely different ways of understanding this art, but equally emotive for different reasons. De la Morena is a personal artist, unique, inimitable. He sits and stares at a fixed point at the back of the room. He never closes his eyes, and when he sings he seems to do it directly to someone or something that only he sees. If the voice does not come out it does not matter, because it transmits its fight with the cante with the whole body, especially with the hands. In his book The world in the earRamón Andrés reminds us that in ancient Egypt singing meant "making music by hand"; the act of singing symbolized a hand and his forearm. And so, to arm split, fought Frenada de la Morena by soleá and fandangos more than personal, accompanied by the exemplary touch of Rubichi.

Before the usual end of the fiesta por bulerías, the poster closed Antonio Reyes accompanied on guitar by Diego del Morao. It was the highlight of the night. Both in the joys and in the seguiriya the two artists, full of faculties, pointed out the flamenco that is to come. An endless flamenco that will be witness to the next editions of this newborn Festival to which we long for a long life.