The House of Culture of Cabanillas has lived an intense musical weekend this January 28 and 29, 2023, with three concerts between Saturday and Sunday, which were added to the performance of Angel Stanich and Alice’s Cream Friday Afternoonwithin the «Acoustic Nights», on this same stage.
The celebration of the II Festival de Música de Raíz «Cabanillas Folk» brought two magnificent traditional music groups to the town: the Basques «Korrontzi» on the afternoon of Saturday 28, and the Celtic music formation «Mosquera Celtic Band» (from de Toledo, although with Galician origins) on Sunday afternoon. Both sets attracted a large audience to the Casa de la Cultura, especially “Korrontzi”, which was close to full.
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The Basque group appeared in Cabanillas with a magnificent quartet of instrumentalists. It is a group led by Agus Barandiaran, one of the best trikitixa musicians in the Basque Country. The trikitixa is a diatonic accordion, originally from Italy but popularized in the Basque Country, and which is a fundamental instrument of traditional Basque folklore, essential in large popular festivals (pilgrimages, parades, popular dances, etc.). Together with the trikitilari accordionist Barandiarán, the formation was completed with three other musicians (a percussionist, a guitar, mandolin and lute player, and a bassist-double bassist), for a recital that combined instrumental music with some songs sung by Barandarian himself, and that was rounded off with the constant presence of two “dantzaris”, young Gipuzkoans with a lot of energy, members of the group “Oinkari Dantza Taldea”.
The concert of “Korrontzi” stood out for the constant appeals to the public, which was very receptive, and did not stop dancing and clapping throughout the performance. For his part, Agus Barandiaran made constant explanations of the roots of his music, the history of his instrument, prohibited during years of dictatorship, and evocations to the great masters of this specialty.
Celtic Band mosquito net
Already on Sunday afternoon the «II Cabanillas Folk» closed with the formation «Mosquera Celtic Band», a group led by the piper Fernando Mosquera (born in Toledo, but of Galician family origins), and which is completed with five other great musicians: the singer Sara Calatrava; the violinist Manuel Briega; guitarist Rafael Martínez-Campos; and two percursionists: José Alberto Ortiz on drums; and Manuel Aguado on tambourines and other traditional percussion elements.
Music of Scottish, Irish and Galician origins, with some touches of North American folklore, is the commitment of this group from Toledo, in which the immense repertoire of instruments used by the leader of the group stands out: Galician bagpipes, Scottish bagpipes, Irish bagpipes, and a multitude of flutes of different sizes and origins. The band has a track record of 11 years on stage, with three albums on the market, and one about to be released in the coming months. A selection of songs from all of them was Mosquera’s proposal for his performance in Cabanillas, a town that he assured he already knew and had visited before.
smuggling
The musical weekend was completed on Sunday morning with the beginning of the fourth edition of the cycle of didactic concerts “More music, please”, which in its first concert this year brought to the stage of the Casa de la Cultura the “Contrabandeando” group, a group from Alcalá (in which there is the presence of a cabanillero percussionist such as Alvar Grijelmo, a professor at the Municipal School of Music), and which made a formidable display of music from the entire South American continent, from Patagonia to Havana.
On stage, nine magnificent musicians, from different backgrounds and generations. The sisters Aurora and Elvira Padrino as extraordinary singers; trumpeter Dani Felipe and saxophonist Jesús Serrano in brass; the percussionists Javi Jiménez, Antonio Algar and the aforementioned Alvar Grijelmo; the bassist and double bassist Alejandro Martín, and leading the formation the singer and guitarist César Gallego.
The audience, very large, turned to the group, and did not stop chanting, dancing and clapping during the hour and a half of performance.
