Estrella Morente at the Trocadero Flamenco Festival
Although the beautiful Granada, as she herself refers to the city where she was born, she does not leave her mind for a second, Star Morente It has been traveling every inch of the Andalusian coast for decades.
It all started with the trips she made as a child with her father Enrique Morente , through villages and inns in which she allowed herself to be conquered by new flavors and the warmth of her neighbors. Later, she enjoyed getting lost in her beaches and coves still wild, she learned to stop for no reason in natural surroundings and did not hesitate to seclude herself for several days after a concert in one of those towns of Cadiz with a snowy facade where time takes its own course.
She is an inveterate traveler, she declares that music is in itself the great journey of her life, the one that has taken her to very special places engraved forever in her memory. The most recent, the Trocadero Flamenco Festival which takes place these days in the mythical restaurant of the same name in Sotogrande, under the direction of the aristocrat Mary of the Light Del Prado . In its first edition, Morente was in charge of opening the summer event, in which you can enjoy until August 27 of great flamenco figures such as Farruquito, Israel Fernández, Navajita Plateá or Remedios Amaya, among others.
Palomo Spain, Maria Fitz-James and Maria de la Luz Del Prado
VICTORIA ZÁRATE (VZ): After the break caused by the pandemic and except for a sporadic date, the Trocadero Flamenco Festival has been your return through the front door. The nerves and the desire to get back on stage would not be few...
ESTRELLA MORENTE (EM): It was something truly magical, especially after going some time without singing and given the responsibility of doing it in a festival new . Sotogrande is an idyllic and very special place for me. I remember that my feet touched the sand on the beach and I felt the smell of saltpeter when he sang… There was no better way to return to the stage. It's incredible what two fantastic and avant-garde musicians like** El Perla** and tobalo , who have dared to program such a festival at this time.
VZ: I imagine there are a lot of anecdotes, but do you have any special moments from that night?
EM: In the instrumental break of the concert, instead of staying in the dressing room, I went to see the stars on the beach. Pure magic.
Estrella Morente in action
VZ: A sky dotted with palm trees and stars, with the sea and Africa in the background... Undoubtedly, a very unique setting to finally present Copla (2019), your latest album that has made a genre as ours and classic as the song folklore is anchored in the 21st century.
EM: During the pandemic, part of the presentation tour was cut short, especially the international one, but I was able to reach places that impose a lot on me (and fill them) such as the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Kursaal in San Sebastián or the Teatro de la Maestranza of Sevilla. There I was able to verify that my message by looking at the classics and bring them to the present in which we live had reached the new generations even to children. I can't keep singing the same lyrics from back then, like the popular Fake coin [She crossed her arms / To not kill her. / She closed her eyes / To not cry. / She was afraid to be weak / And to forgive her, / And she opened the door / Wide open…] because we women are fighting for the opposite. I wanted to take care of precisely that, and maintain a balance between before and now.
VZ: Your father Enrique Morente was the great thinker of this album.
EM: Yes, he wanted to return to the popular bands of the towns, to that ancient sound and pure of the parades that were heard in the verbenas. Teacher Isidro Munoz , one of the last remaining flamenco geniuses, was in charge of executing this work and carrying it out when my father died.
'Couplet'
**VZ: Festival Trocadero kicked off a summer tour that will take you to Alicante, Marbella, Ibiza, Cádiz… We are talking about very different cities and environments. Will they share the same staging or will there be surprises? **
EM: My concerts tend to vary a lot, depending on whether it is a more intimate or massive concert, if I am in a small theater or an open-air festival… But they maintain a common thread that always goes with me. My works are intertwined with each other and in them appears the music with which I grew up in my house, that flamenco singing that I listened to with my father.
VZ: Do you usually do any ritual before or after going on stage?
EM: No, I have fewer and fewer manias. I think that customs become laws and the only thing I always do before is give the thanks , something that I repeat daily. I have rituals in my rehearsals, I mark an order in the preparation so that it has an artistic and human sense. I look for the magic to reach that audience in a specific place, and I like to be aware of the space I step on. But if I had to say one, I would say that the naturalness It is the best ritual of all, I do not want to be at the expense of an amulet.
**VZ: Do you like going off script? **
EM: Yes, but it is the seriousness and the neatness which allows me to synchronize with my musicians and get to that improvisation. The flamenco band that I have with me are of an extraordinary level, I trust them a lot.
VZ: And when it comes to making a personal trip, do you like to improvise or do you have everything well tied up before leaving?
EM: I consider myself a traveler with many faces. I have that cautious Star from when she traveled with small children and animals, the one that she leaves with everything organized for work or the one who simply goes alone with a backpack. Anyway, the improvisation I do not relate it to disorder, it is something that is the result of the moment and of causality, which makes you act in one way or another. Suddenly you plan to sleep in a hotel or eat in a restaurant and on the way, you stop in a small town and discover a food stall with a delicious cheese... That's something wonderful! If you are prepared to let go and be flexible, you can be much freer when you travel.
VZ: Beach, city, mountain… Do you have a specific type of destination?
EM: I always look for the Water , and not in the sense of a paradisiacal beach or a river. I come from the city of water, Grenade , and that has made it my guide when I travel, be it the bed of a river, the murmur of the cisterns...
Grenada, Spain
VZ: Where would you move to right now if you could?
EM: My music It is in itself a trip to many places, but if I could right now I would take a backpack and get on a boat to a surprise destination… The truth is that I travel a lot for my work and I don't need a specific trip, but I would have liked to make trips with very special people who are no longer there. Everything that has happened has made me reconsider how important it is get closer to people that we want, move for that reason.
VZ: Apart from a conventional suitcase, what do you usually take with you when you travel?
EM: My schedule. Am mother of adolescent boys, the granddaughter of a 90-year-old grandmother and I have little nephews, all this together with my professional commitments and all those daily tasks that I do not neglect and that I like to continue doing make it an essential object. Me diary is a witness to everything, and my travels too.
VZ: You have just published My Poems and a Cante (Beatus Ille & Cía), your first collection of poems in which you have confessed influences as varied as Federico García Lorca, María Zambrano or even Teresa de Jesús. When it comes to composing, are trips a motivation?
EM: I move around a lot feelings and for what life offers me, and I try to capture it whenever I can on paper, including when I travel. I do not have a schedule not a specific time to write, it may come up one afternoon when the sun goes down or during a plane trip. It depends on when you live. My father used to say that the literature and the culture in general it is the only one to tell us about our own origins. Everything is there.
VZ: You live in the city of Malaga but you move freely along the entire Andalusian coast. What stops are required on this route along the coast?
EM: I am one to discover new beaches and coves. to the area of Nerja For example, I highly recommend the sea beach , dotted with cliffs and much wilder than the rest of the area, a natural paradise although it is increasingly crowded. On the other side, towards Cadiz , there is a very special place called pigeon point . A good friend had a little country house there that I used to rent often, right on the point, with a wonderful recording studio. It was where I recorded My cante and a poem (2001), my first album. I still remember those special afternoons when you could see Africa without mist... And further west, Sanlucar de Barrameda , which I recommend visiting in the evenings during the horse races.
sea beach
VZ: And to eat well?
EM: Right there, in mustache house in front of the Doñana preserve. My father used to take us since we were little, it is a seafood temple where you can eat some delicious prawns together with a glass of chamomile looking at that great natural landscape.
VZ: What memories do you have of those summers with your father along the Andalusian coast?
EM: As a child we spent a lot of summer in this area. My father taught us to stop at unexpected villages where we discover a farm in which they gave you to try fresh milk, a different cheese or a handful of rich oils. He loved the sales, where you really know the towns and the story behind. Now I go with my children and their friends, young and modern people, to whom I introduce these neighborhood corralones and their customs.
mustache house
VZ: And Sotogrande, what does this land mean to you?
For me they are the houses of my friends , that authentic Sotogrande that I discovered with them before it became massive. It was the summers with my dear mariola orellana and her brother Fernando de ella, who had a wonderful house right on the pier, where he anchored his boat and we had breakfast facing the sea.
VZ: One piece of advice you always give when discovering this area?
The simplest and most unexpected places can be the most surprising, but to discover them you have to leave the rush at home and get lost on the roads local, take the streets of a lifetime. And not only along the coast, but also in inland areas. Jimena de la Frontera , for example, is one of those indelible white towns of Cádiz, with a square and beautiful streets to get lost in. The first time I visited it was for a one night concert and I ended up staying for four days.
VZ: Do you have a special place to unwind?
I don't have a specific place, I like to let myself go. maybe some secret but I am not going to reveal it because it would stop being so, haha… I am a free animal and I feel comfortable in places where there is naturalness, whether it is a wonderful hotel or a modest cabin in the middle of the field. I don't believe in divism or in the whims of being artists. The authentic traveler he knows that he is going to experience all kinds of situations, and you have to adapt to them, impregnate yourself with different smells and get your feet dirty if necessary.
Refuge of the elite on the Cadiz coast