Qudud Flamenco Project at Duende Flamenco Festival

Three artists from Spain –Carlos Piñana, Celia Romero and Miguel Ángel Orengo– join Syrian singer Abdelkarim Hamdan at Aga Khan Museum’s Duende Flamenco Festival.

Each edition of the Festival presents a bespoke performance to cap the event; in 2018, this work fuses the traditional Qudud of Aleppo –a classical music form that originated in Andalusia– and Flamenco, demonstrating the connections between the two genres.

In this world premiere performance in collaboration with the Festival du Monde Arabe de Montréal, three artists from Spain join Syrian singer Abdelkarim Hamdan, who wowed audiences on the second season of Arab Idol, and an as-yet group of Montreal-based instrumentalists and dancers (qanun, oud, percussions, piano, double bass, ney, etc and whirling dervish) for a performance that will see a collaboration between FMAM Artistic Director Joseph Nakhlé and Spanish guitarist and composer Carlos Piñana.

Rehearsals and artistic residency take place in Montreal during the second week of November, for a premiere at the Museum. Carlos Piñana, the grandson of Antonio Piñana, patriarch of the cantes mineros, and son of guitarist Antonio Piñana, performs around the world and is a professor of Flamenco Guitar at the Music Conservatory of Murcia and the Artistic Director of the Murcia International Guitar Festival. He is joined by singer Celia Romero and percussionist/dancer Miguel Ángel Orengo.

About Duende Flamenco Festival

Flamenco is comprised of several art forms –singing, music, and dance – influenced by Arabic, Sephardic and nomadic Gypsy traditions originally from India. The Iberian Peninsula was once part of the al-Andalus dynasty, and Flamenco represents the synergies arising from collaborations between the world’s three major religions.

Thus is the annual Duende Festival ideal for showcasing the many tangents that extend from Muslim history and culture, stretching the public’s idea of the reaches of Islamic culture. It celebrates the multidisciplinary nature of Flamenco influenced by different cultures and forms, and its evolving expression from across Spain by presenting a range of music and dance by local, domestic and international artists as well as film screenings.