Son De La Frontera http://virb.com/sondelafrontera Virb 2.0 (@sondelafrontera) en Buleria Negra Del Gastor http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/audio/229399 Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:45:37 -0800 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/audio/229399 Tangos De Mi Novia http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/audio/229398 Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:44:43 -0800 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/audio/229398 Buleria En Rama (Buleria) http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/audio/226106 Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:10:46 -0800 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/audio/226106 Tanguillos De La Frontera (Tanguillos) http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/audio/226104 Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:09:53 -0800 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/audio/226104 Un compromiso/Toda Una Vida (Buleria) http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/audio/226102 Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:09:07 -0800 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/audio/226102 Buleria De La Cal (Buleria) http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/audio/226101 Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:08:20 -0800 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/audio/226101 SDLF_01 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/photos/1511292

Photo by Mario Pacheco. L to R: Moi de Moron, Pepe Torres, Manuel Flores, Paco de Amparo, Raul Rodriguez (center).

]]> Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:29:47 -0800 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/photos/1511292 SDLF_04 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/photos/1511291

Son de la Frontera. L to R: Pepe Torres, Moi de Moron, Raul Rodriguez, Paco de Amparo, Manuel Flores.

]]> Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:27:27 -0800 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/photos/1511291 Photo by Mario Pacheco http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/photos/1511290

Photo by Mario Pacheco. L to R: Pepe Torres, Moi de Moron, Manuel Flores, Paco de Amparo, and Raul Rodriguez.

]]> Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:27:15 -0800 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/photos/1511290 On WNYC's New Sounds: "Global Guitars" http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/793436 Son De La Frontera on WNYC's New Sounds! ]]> Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:53:38 -0700 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/793436 BBC World Music Concert excerpts video http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/771693 Watch a clip of Son de la Frontera's performance at the World Music Awards concert at the BBC Proms here. The group appears at around 3:24 in the video.]]> Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:25:55 -0700 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/771693 Son de la Frontera in the UK press: BBC PROMS http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/748955 Mixed traditions at World Music Awards By Nick Kimberley, Evening Standard 31.07.08 "For dancing, nothing equalled the exuberance of Spain's Son de la Frontera. Their music sticks close to flamenco tradition, although Cuban guitar, less percussive than Spanish, produces a gentler inflection. The dancing, with amplified foot-stamping and virtuoso hand-clapping, had an equine grace, while the singing came from some deep well of anguish." (link) Ivan Hewett reviews Prom 17 - a World Music celebration "things dramatically improved with Son de la Frontera, a fabulous flamenco group. All it took was one phrase from singer Moi de Morón, defiantly uningratiating and rasping, to know this was the real deal. The guitar playing from Raúl Rodríguez and Paco de Amoparo was similarly spell-binding. That raised my spirits." (link) Prom 17: World Music Celebration, Royal Albert Hall, London Reviewed by Tim Cumming Friday, 1 August 2008 "Sons de la Frontera, the flamenco group from southern Spain, took us to the first interval, singer Moi de Moró*opening with a powerful solo bulería. Their music's marriage of north African with Mediterranean and Caribbean forces saw group founder Raúl Rodriguez duelling and weaving on the double-stringed Cuban tres guitar with guitarist Paco de Amparo. But it was the show-stopping flamenco dance of Pepe Torres that made "Solea de Pepe" the highlight of their set, the hand dancers slowly heating the music to the point where Torres stepped to the square of shiny floor brought to the stage with them, and executed a remarkable performance." (link)]]> Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:14:29 -0700 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/748955 The Independent on WOMAD: Son de la Frontera's "remarkable effect" http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/725841 The world descends on Wiltshire This year's Womad will have the most eclectic line-up in its history, reports Tim Cumming Friday, 18 July 2008 "Womad 2008 has a lot to live up to as it enters its second quarter-century. In 2007, it moved to its current site at Charlton Park, a 17th-century pile in 4,500 idyllic acres near Malmesbury, Wiltshire. More than 70 acts from 40 countries will pass through its gates for the three days of the festival. Everyone involved, from Womad founder Peter Gabriel to the festival crews, must be praying to the gods of global gatherings for no repeat of last summer's quagmire. "Not so much offering a taste of the world, but providing a glimpse of the end of it," grumbled one festival-goer. Others were critical of some obvious teething problems in the new site.... But world music is not only a roots music encompassing the traditional and indigenous. Traditions get bent and amalgamated as they clash with change, technology, and innovation. "Fusion" is not always a bad word. Son de la Frontera combine Cuban tres guitar with flamenco and Moorish influences, to remarkable effect. Rachid Taha exerts a strong crossover appeal. You can find the drum'n'bass of Roni Size and Reprazent on street stalls in Morocco alongside Tinariwen or Toumani Diabaté. Why shouldn't a Guyanan pop singer like Eddy Grant play on a bill alongside Diabaté? Womad is not solely about cultural purity...." (full article)]]> Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:50:16 -0700 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/725841 Spinner's Around The World: "Flamenco's True Frontiers" http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/671542 Son de la Frontera, Peter Walker and Pacifika on Flamenco's True Frontiers "It looks pretty simple: A guy on the right of the stage playing guitar, a guy on the left playing a different plucked-string instrument and three guys between them alternately clapping rhythms, singing and dancing. The performance of the group Son de la Frontera at the Echoplex in Los Angeles' hip Los Feliz neighborhood is anything but simple, an invigorating set of music as complex as it is passionate. And on such pieces as 'Un Compromiso/Toda Una Vida' (listen to it here), it's immeasurably passionate, the sounds of the instruments bearing equal amounts of highly disciplined precision and gifted instinct, with the highly demonstrative singing and dancing, at times bordering on overwrought, coming from the depth of the soul of the performers and from the depth of the centuries of dramatic history behind this flamenco music. But it was also more than that. It was a living map of this group's approach. Think of Paco de Amparo's guitar as Andalusia, the home of Son de la Frontera. On the other side of the stage, Raúl Rodríguez's stringed instrument, the Cuban tres, represented Latin America, the true frontier of this Son. Flamenco didn't stop at the edge of Spain, of course, but came along with the exploration and settlements of the New World. And between these two geographic stand-ins, singer Moi de Morón, dancer Pepe Torres and Manuel Flores -- all of them contributing the compás (clapped and stomped beats) -- are the passage across the Atlantic, reaching even across the Americas into the hills of Mexico and to the Pacific coast of Peru and Ecuador in sounds that echo in this night's music." - Steve Hochman (full article)]]> Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:41:06 -0700 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/671542 Watch BBC Radio 3's World Music Awards Highlight Video! http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/568746 Son de la Frontera in the World Music Awards Highlights video on BBC Radio 3's website here: http://www. bbc. co. uk/radio3/worldmusic/a4wm2008/video_audio. shtml]]> Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:26:20 -0700 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/568746 BBC Radio 3 Award Winners! http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/562521 Flamenco group Son de la Frontera has won the "Europe" category in the seventh annual BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music. Congratulations!]]> Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:13:03 -0700 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/562521 More UK Press on the Barbican: "mesmerizing rhythms" http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/547762 Hornsey and Crouch End Journal, on the Barbican show: "The double bill at the Barbican was packed and the double encore testament to the quality of this gig. Son de la Frontera (Sound of the Frontier) is a flamenco band with a twist. Band leader Raúl Rodriguez pairs his Cuban tres-guitar with flamenco-guitar to bring a Latin American element to the more traditional sound. Whether dueting or being accompanied by Moi de Moron on vocals and other members on compas, this band's mesmerising rhythms make flamenco seem fresh and exciting. After the high of Son de la Frontera's set, Mayra Andrade's low key West African beats seemed rather uninspiring."- Jo Caird]]> Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:23:34 -0700 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/547762 The Independent "Mayra Andrade almost blown away by Son de la Frontera" http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/537273 Son de la Frontera at the Barbican in The Independent UK, giving the show 4 stars: "She last appeared in London supporting Angélique Kidjo at the Barbican in the autumn. Six months on and Mayra Andrade has been nominated for a Radio 3 Award for World Music and returned to the Barbican, this time heading a double bill with flamenco group Son de la Frontera. So it was ironic that this triumphant return was almost blown away by the passion of Son de la Frontera's opening set. Guitarists Paco De Amparo and Raul Rodriguez, on the double-stringed Cuban tres guitar, flank the dancer Pepe Torres, hand percussionist Manuel Flore, and singer Moi de Moron. The delicate tones of the tres spiral through flamenco's falsetas - the scales and arpeggios that are its equivalent to jazz riffs - and the precision playing between the two is as breathtaking as the complex rhythms they keep on the boil. Vocalist Moi starts with an impassioned buleria. On "Solea de Pepe", the young dancer Torres returns to perform a blistering 10-minute dance that earns huge applause. Pure flamenco, muy macho."]]> Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:20:06 -0700 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/537273 Financial Times "The allure of the newcomer" http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/518883 Financial Times' Mark Espiner praises Son de la Frontera's set at the Barbican. "Late last year, Mayra Andrade's debut album had just been released and she was playing the support slot for the Benin singer Angelique Kidjo at the Barbican. Then, with a confident set, she practically sang her off the stage. Six months on she has a nomination for best newcomer in the BBC Radio 3 World Music Awards, is the headline act and has sold out the venue. This time her support band, Son De La Frontera (Sound of the Frontier) - also nominated for an award in the Europe category - threatened to do to her what she had done to Kidjo. This five-piece band from Spain are aptly named; their music pushes at the borders of traditional styles with a daring mix of traditional Flamenco and Latin American sounds. As band leader Raúl Rodríguez said: "We offer you the best of our tradition and the best of our creation." It was an offer the audience liked, rewarding a marvellous duet that set Rodríguez's clean-picked Cuban tres guitar against Paco de Amparo's frantic Spanish strumming with a standing ovation. Unusual for a supporting act."]]> Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:43:17 -0700 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/518883 Sequenza21 "I Left My (Spanish) Heart in San Francisco" http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/502706 Sequenza21. "Flamenco provides one of the rawest, purest, and most sophisticated musico-dramatic experiences on the planet. And the 6-member Son De La Frontera, presented by The Bay Area Flamenco Partnership at The Yerba Buena Center for The Arts Theater Saturday 1 March, are masters of this ancient form...Son De La Frontera delivered it clearly, honestly,and without regret. Virgil Thomson once declared that composers did everything but speak the language of the heart. But these Spaniards, who paid tribute to composer-guitarist Diego Del Gastor (1908-1973) here, certainly did. And their music, which comes from Del Gastor's, made the divided chambers of the heart visceral, and incredibly real. ...Del Gastor's was ripe with subtle yet powerful touches and myriad colors, like a dream of Spain's fairest flower. Things got obviously more intense when guitarists Raul Rodriguez and Paco De Amparo took the stage with singer Moi De Moron, and the compas, or rhythm section provided by him -- handclapping on the palmas, or the sordas -- and Manuel Flores, and Pepe Torres, who also danced. Rodriquez and De Amparo's unisons and solos were a harmonic and coloristic anchor to the intricate polyrhythms of the other three musicians, especially the phenomenally fancy footwork, or taconero, by Torres, who had tons of that essential flamenco ingredient, duende, and whose turning, lurching, and jumping was powerfully controlled, the scarlet back of his black vest the only note of color in the show.... ...The group also gave knockout performances of the fiesta, cantina, sevillana...And I was reminded of the late great Spanish mezzo Rocio Jurado, who sang on the soundtrack of Carlos Saura's 1985 film of De Falla's El Amor Brujo, when listening to Moi de Moron. You don't have to know or even "hear" the words to feel whats he's saying. It doesn't get any better, or more real than this." - Michael McDonagh]]> Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:05:38 -0800 http://virb.com/sondelafrontera/posts/text/502706