Flamenco artist María José Llergo, from Córdoba, Spain, is the winner of the First Premio Paco Martín (Paco Martin Award) to rising talent in world music. The award was created this year by La Mar de Músicas festival in cooperation with the Paco Martín cultural association.
The winner gets to perform at the renowned La Mar de Músicas festival in Cartagena, Spain. The festival this year will take place July 17 – 25, 2020.
The Paco Martín Award intends to support the development of new world music talent. The winner was selected last night by a jury of journalists: Amelia Castilla (El País), Lara López (RNE), Ana Sánchez Moreno (TVE), Laura Piñero (Cadena SER) and producer Isabel Sánchez (Sonde 3).
María José Llergo recently released an album titled Sanación.
Spanish National Radio producer Lara López stated: “her work transmits truth and the naturalness with which she has resolved tensions between both the tradition she knows and the contemporaneity she proposes; as well as in terms of purity and hybridization, opening new paths to the popular song, qualities that add to her talent as a performer and composer, widely demonstrated in her debut album.”
María Balanza, president of the Paco Martín Cultural Association,said after hearing the jury’s decision. “Nobody doubts that María José Llergo will be the protagonist of flamenco and music in general in our country in the coming years. Her career has just begun, but her music will serve to verify the personality of an artist who knows how to go to tradition to take it to other paths and sound contemporary. Her songs inhabit a music that unites commitment, conscience, poetry and truth. Paco would have programmed it without a doubt if he had met her.”
Author: World Music Central News Room
World music news from the editors at World Music Central