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Paco Peña and the band (Spain)

“Misa Flamenca” — concert

12. 11. 2011 – Saturday
8 pm
MB Zwycięska Church, ul. Łąkowa 40

About Christian Culture Festival

Christian Culture Festival was organized for the first time in 1997 on 10th Anniversary of the Logos Theatre. In a sense, it extends the idea of Christian Culture Weeks organized in Poland in 70s and 80s of the last century, which were to become counterpoise to lay media model promoted by the State. Lodz Christian Culture Days were organized in churches all around the city, so as to accommodate the artists, spectacles, exhibitions and projections.

One of such places was the John Paul lecture theatre in the vault of the Assumption of Holy Mother Church in Kościelna Street. This is where the Logos Theatre started, before it was moved to the church in Maria Skłodowska-Curie. It was this church that Archbishop Władysław Ziółek gave to the Lodz artists in 1993, and in which the Centre of Creative Communities’ of Lodz Archdiocese was appointed. It is here that the ‘logistic’ centre of the Festival is located, and where some of the Festival events take place.

Traditionally, the Festival takes place in November, on the first Sunday after All Soul’s Day. It usually lasts for two weeks, during which various event take place – spectacle premiers, other theatres come to Lodz, there are exhibitions of invited artists, performances of choirs and musicians, very often not to be seen anywhere else in Poland at any other time. The Festival programme is the result of the whole year’s work of rev. Waldemar Sondka, the Festival Director, who – using his contacts – invites artists who are interesting, out of the ordinary, noteworthy and creating art perhaps not always religious, but always searching and at the highest level. Care for the level of the Festival offers is a permanent rule, the Logos environment has always wished to provide the Lodz citizens with the possibility of contact with art deprived of parochialism, open to the man and as perfect formally as possible.

The Festival is not an activity that brings profit. Any entrance cards are issued as invitations that are free of charge, and the team of the Logos Theatre and all the people engaged in the Festival organization, act as volunteers. This does not mean that Christian Culture Festival costs nothing. On the contrary, to organize such a cultural event at appropriate level is always connected with costs. Rev. Waldemar Sondka deals with organizing means to secure the Festival events all year round. He manages to gain sponsors (without whom the Festival would not exist) and subsidies from institutions that deal with funding culture (without which the Festival could not develop). All that in order to realize the basic idea of the event that derived from the Lodz Christian Culture Days – to enable anyone who wishes and needs that, to live the Mystery through art. This idea assumes a free of charge participation in all the artistic events, which has been the case since the very beginning of the Festival until today, the only condition is that on the day of the Festival opening, one must queue as long as it takes to get invitations. The only limit to the number of invitations is the capacity of rooms in which the events are organized every day throughout the two weeks of the Festival.


 

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Misa Flamenca
Composed by Paco Peña

Paco Peña’s original concept for a flamenco Mass sprang from the desire to unite the Catholic perception of the religious Mass to flamenco musical tradition: a flamenco artist is raised with both, and both evoke the same intangible sentiments within the artist.

On the one hand, the Mass is a vehicle for people to reach to God and places in them in a spiritual state that helps them to achieve communion with Him; it is a spiritual act and is also highly emotional.

On the other hand, flamenco is also as art form, charged with emotional content which, in a genuine delivery, goes beyond the merely physical action of singing and touches “spiritual” levels.

Therefore, these two expressions of the religious Mass and flamenco singing have the potential of achieving a very powerful emotional experience (almost touching a trance-like state).

Paco’s initial approach to the composition of the Mass was to adapt the Spanish Catholic Mass set texts, which he took to the Bishop of Córdoba whose approval was received for the new version.

Paco then used his vast knowledge of flamenco tradition and flamenco forms in order to choose the most effective and appropriate settings for the words. The flamenco elements in the Mass are, in some instances, given a classical treatment, thus achieveing a musical effect which can be appreciated by a broader spectrum of listener.

In addition to a basic group of flamenco artists (male and female singers, guitarists and a percussionist) the Mass includes a choir of a minimum of 20 voices. It has also been performed with a male dancer in concert.

This emotional mixture of the Catholic mass and the different flamenco forms, joined by a classical choir, took the musical world by storm.

 

Introduction
by Paco Peña

When in 1988 I was asked to write a religious work for the Wratislavia Cantans Festival, a mixture of feelings invaded me from a sense of honour to delight and trepidation. Honour, because flamenco, the music I had learned from my personal roots and that had become my life blood, had been given the opportunity to link and share the platform with other, enormously prestigious musical works and groups in a completely different body of music within the classical mould. Trepidation because I have a great love and respect for the two cultures and would want to do nothing but justice to both.

I immediately fell in love with the idea. I have always thought that there is a sincerity, a passion in the cry of the flamenco song that sends piercing messages from the singer’s soul, supercharged with emotive content, and displaying very deep basic human feelings. The flamenco singer doesn’t sing a story; his song seemingly searches for his innermost sensitivities, retrieving and exposing them to no-one, or everyone; to Nature, or perhaps to God…

Thus, to me, flamenco seems like a spiritual experience and I feel it is appropriate to choose it as a vehicle for reaching out to God in the context of a Christian Mass.

Fitting the Liturgy of the Mass to flamenco songs required making some changes to the actual written text. This I have done with the counsel of several friends, members of the Catholic Church in Córdoba: notably D. Veleriano Orden and D. Juan Moreno, Vicario General and Arcediano of the Córdoba Diocese, respectively.

 

Paco Peña
Biography

Paco Peña embodies both authenticity and innovation in flamenco. As guitarist, composer, dramatist, producer and artistic mentor he has transformed perceptions of this archetypal Spanish art form.

Born in the Andalucian city of Córdoba, Paco Peña began learning guitar from his brother at the age of six and made his first professional appearance at the age of 12. In the late 1960s he left Spain for London where his recitals of flamenco music captured the public imagination.

Venues for his solo performances have included the intimate Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club and the monumental Royal Albert Hall in London, New York’s Carnegie Hall and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. He has shared the stage with fellow-guitarists, singers and instrumental groups, bridging diverse musical genres, including classical, jazz, blues, country and Latin American.

In 1995 The New York Times declared that: “Mr Peña is a virtuoso, capable of dazzling an audience beyond the frets of mortal man. He combines rapid-fire flourishes with a colourist’s sense of shading; this listener cannot recall hearing any guitarist with a more assured mastery of his instrument.“ It should come as no surprise that readers of America”s Guitar magazine judged Paco Peña Best Flamenco Guitarist of the Year for five consecutive years.

In 1981 he founded the Centro Flamenco Paco Peña in Cordoba, later becoming Artistic Director of the Córdoba International Guitar Festival. Plans are underway for a new educational initiative in Peña’s hometown, complementing his work as the world’s first Professor of Flamenco Guitar, a role established in 1985 at Rotterdam Conservatory in the Netherlands.

Since 1970 Paco Peña has performed regularly with his own hand-picked company of dancers, guitarists and singers in a succession of groundbreaking shows. The Paco Peña Flamenco Dance Company has taken flamenco into the realm of music-theatre with regular seasons in London (Royal Festival Hall, Sadler’s Wells Theatre and Barbican) and festival appearances in Edinburgh, Adelaide, Amsterdam, Athens, Israel, Istanbul, Singapore and Hong Kong. 1999 brought the most ambitious production yet: Musa Gitana. Peña based the piece on the life and work of another artist from Córdoba, the painter Julio Romero de Torres. Its seven-week season at the Peacock Theatre in London”s West End stands as the longest-ever run of a flamenco show and a further London season followed in Spring 2001.

Another landmark was Misa Flamenca, a 1991 setting of the Mass that juxtaposed Peña’s company with a classical choir. Its premiere at London’s Royal Festival Hall, given with the Choir of the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, was followed by a staging at the 1992 EXPO in Seville. Misa Flamenca has also been seen in Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and the USA. Paco Peña has further plans to marry flamenco with the forms and forces of classical music.

Paco Peña is based in London, but still spends a significant part of the year in his native Andalucía. In 1997 he was proud to be named Oficial de la Cruz de la Orden del Merito Civil, an honour bestowed by King Juan Carlos of Spain.