Pasion’ Flamenca at St Paul, Minnesota’s Hamline University
I’m excited about this one. Rachel “la Mala” (flamenco singer) and I have been awarded a grant by the MN Arts Board and the Legacy Fund to present our own flamenco show at Hamline University (1536 Hewitt Ave, St Paul, MN). It’ll be on Saturday evening, March 1st, starting with pre-concert remarks at 7pm and the show begins at 7:30. The venue is the acoustically amazing Sundin Hall.
It’s an ambitious program that tracks the roots of flamenco, including Sefardic, Arabic and Romany song, music, and dance—this is the first half. We’ve assembled a great group of violinists, percussionists, dancers, a qanun player, keyboardist as well as Greg Sagar, another fine flamenco singer.
The second half deals with present day trends in flamenco, including Jazz-flamenco, World Beat, Electronica—ending with the powerful urge to return to the traditional, what I call flamenco puro y duro.
We’re all involved in rehearsals now and it is an imspiring (inspired?) project, to say the least.
The following Friday, March 7th, we’ll be hosting a FREE dance party and flamenco jam session at the Bush Center Ballroom, next door to Sundin Hall on the Hamline campus. This will be from 7 till 10pm. I’ll also be giving a FREE guitar workshop at Sundin on Monday, Feb 24th from 1 till 3pm.
Don’t miss this concert!