“It was a love of the music that inspired me to make this flamenco album and bring together these two traditions”, says Anoushka Shankar. “I’ve always loved flamenco and had a fascination for it. There’s always been that pull towards something I find very similar in flamenco to what I cherish in Indian classical music: a kind of uninhibited musicality in expression, whether it’s a solo voice, a sitar or a guitar. Of course there were common roots and technical similarities to explore, and when you start to play with those, you can really delve down in very delicious ways. However the desire came from simply being an admirer of the music, and wanting to learn about it through making music.”
Asked what drew him particularly to Indian classical music and Anoushka Shankar’s style of playing, Javier Limón explains: “When Anoushka plays pure Indian music, for us she’s playing pure flamenco – for all the Gypsies, for Paco [de Lucía] and me, for all of us. When she plays Indian we sometimes say: ‘Hey, you play flamenco very well, this is flamenco.’ And she always answers: ‘No, no, no, this was Indian, pure Indian.’ The frontier is not clear because many centuries ago, maybe eight, the Gypsies came from Rajasthan and brought a lot from there to the flamenco style, to flamenco music. They created what we know today as flamenco with the Christians and Jews in Spain and with the Arabs. That’s why there are a lot of things in common that make our musical forms brothers. Flamenco is very young, about 200 years old. For me, flamenco is like the little brother of Indian music.”
Tour Dates
November 2011
4 November 2011
Palais du Littoral
Grande-Synthe, France
6 November 2011
Munich, Germany
Prinzregententheater
7 November 2011
Stadthalle
Heidelberg, Germany
8 November 2011
La Cigale
Paris, France
10 November 2011
Nuevo Teatro Circo
Cartagena, Spain
11 November 2011
Auditorio Kursaal
San Sebastian, Spain
15 November 2011
Teatro Circo Price
Madrid, Spain
16 November 2011
Kaufleuten
Zurich, Switzerland
17 November 2011
Festspielhaus
Baden-Baden, Germany
18 November 2011
Victoria Hall
Geneva, Switzerland
19 November 2011
Philharmonie
Luxembourg, Luxembourg
20 November 2011
The Anvil
Basingstoke, Great Britain
22 November 2011
Usher Hall
Edinburgh, Great Britain
23 November 2011
Warwick Arts Centre
Coventry, Great Britain
24 November 2011
Royal & Derngate Theatre
Northampton, Great Britain
26 November 2011
Philharmonic Hall
Liverpool, Great Britain
27 November 2011
The Bridgewater Hall
Manchester, Great Britain
28 November 2011
Gateshead, Great Britain
The Sage Gateshead
30 November 2011
Concert Hall (Megaron)
Athens, Greece
December 2011
2 December 2011
Colston Hall
Bristol, Great Britain
5 December 2011
Queen Elizabeth Hall (South Bank Centre)
London, Great Britain
6 December 2011
Berlin, Germany
Haus der Kulturen der Welt
7 December 2011
Laeiszhalle
Hamburg, Germany
8 December 2011
Konzerthaus Dortmund
Dortmund, Germany
9 December 2011
Palais des Beaux-Arts/Paleis voor Schone Kunsten
Brussels, Belgium
12 December 2011
Gulbenkian
Lisbon, Portugal
14 December 2011
Palau de la Musica Catalana
Barcelona, Spain
Author: World Music Central News Room
World music news from the editors at World Music Central
