Eduardo Serrano Iglesias, El Güito

Have you heard of this man? Well,it may interest you to know that in the 1960's he won the Sarah Bernhardt prize, recognizing him as the best dancer of his day. Who was his competition? None other than Rudolf Nureyev!

While in Madrid we went to one of the performances of the Suma Flamenca, a festival celebrating the oh-so-Spanish art of flamenco dancing.

The concert we went to on May 9th featured El Guito, a legend in flamenco dance. You simply have to read this interview with him at flamenco-world. The story of his first performance at age five is the stuff of legend!

This was my first, live experience of flamenco. Laure told me that most people either love it or hate it. I loved it! The concert started with two men standing on an empty stage dressed all in black. The spotlight shone on one of the men and he started singing, a capella, a song of immense feeling and passion. He put his whole body into this song and even though I didn't understand a word of it I was caught up in the feeling. Such is the power of music!

The spotlight then fell on another man and he took his turn singing and then they sang together. The stage went dark for a few moments. When the lights came back on these two men were seated at the back of the stage with two others; with three guitarists seated next to them. All were dressed in black.

They performed together, separately and in various groups. The guitarists were amazing and I'm disappointed that I lost my program and cannot, therefore, credit their outstanding performance.

I really appreciated the fact that there were no props, no set decorations and no fancy lighting. Just superb singers,one of whom sounded like the lead singer to the Gypsy Kings, guitarists and dancers.

And the dancers? Amazing! Beginning, of course, with El Guito himself. He walked onto the stage in tight black pants, a blousy black shirt with a black cummerbund and he was instantly commanding. At the time I thought that he was 60. After doing some research on the Internet I discovered that he is actually 65, which made his performance even more impressive! El Guito is particularly known for his expertise in the solea and farruca.

Laure told me that the audience would probably cry out his nickname, "El Guito," and other names for him during the concert. For me, this added to the performance. I always think that this idea of holding your applause until the end to be a bit constipated. I realize that there are moments when this is important but sometimes I think that it's good to let loose and really join in the moment!

There were two female dancers as well who danced both individually, together and with El Guito. It was truly an outstanding evening.

The rain in Spain.....

Well, I'm back from sunny Spain!

This is what the sky looked like during most of my 10 days in the land of sunshine. Of course, there were those unfortunate days when there simply was not one, single cloud in the sky but nothing's perfect, right?

Being the intrepid traveler that I am I checked on weather.com for the 10 day forecast before packing my suitcase. The forecast called for temperatures in the 50's and lower 60's with a 50% to 80% chance of rain. Why, oh why, did I pay attention to the forecast?

As a result my suitcase contained long pants, a jacket, long-sleeved shirts, etc. The years of Willamette Valley living infuse my soul still! In my defense, Laure told me to prepare for the worst. It had been cold and rainy for days. In fact, I discovered that the day prior to my arrival this was the case. The day of my arrival it was sunny and 82! And guess what? The day before I left it was rainy and 58. The sunshine arrived with me and it left with me. Yes, I have that kind of power.

The picture above is a stretch of original medieval road leading to the hilltop setting of Calatrava la Nueva. Near the city of Ciudad Real in Don Quixote's Castilla-La Mancha, Calatrava la Nueva was a castle-monastery founded in 1217 by the Knights of Calatrava. They were Spain's first military-religious order. Here's more on the Order of Calatrava.

Here are some pictures of Calatrava la Nueva as we approached the site. I'm really interested in medieval fortresses and castles so I took a lot of pictures. Unlike some of the inhabitants of former castles (if their rooms of torture instruments are taken into account) I have decided to be merciful and only share a few.






A note on Spanish notions of time. Hint....It's not like ours. We arrived at Calatrava la Nueva at about 10:45 to discover the sign on the entrance stating that the castle-monastery would open at 11:00.

Finding the castle was a bit of an adventure and so the fifteen minute wait didn't seem like too high of a price to pay. 11:00 came and went. 11:10 came and went. 11:25 came and went. We were headed to Granada for a night visit to the Alhambra so were on a bit of a schedule. I talked Laure into making this detour to feed my castle fetish and I could see my medieval moment in the sun vanishing with every second that ticked by.

In the meantime an adventurous soul pushed on the door and separated it just enough to squeeze through. First Laure and then myself followed suit. At least we would have a good look around inside before leaving.

This is Laure standing in the corner near the door in her pre-breaking and entering pose.

The scene of the crime.

What we discovered inside.


We took a few pictures on the lower slopes of the castle but the main entrance to the castle was locked and beyond our powers of petty crime.

We eventually squeezed back out through the door, got in our car and headed back down the very bumpy and very picturesque (see the first photo above) medieval road.

But the Man of La Mancha was with us! On the way down we ran into (almost literally!) the caretaker who was driving up the road like a bat out of hell! I was really happy. My love of exploring ancient fortresses was about to be indulged. The time, by the way, was 11:50. This is not the only time that I realized that we were on what I like to call "Latin time." But, really, who cares? We were on vacation!

Here are more pictures of the interior of Calatrava la Nueva.

The entrance of the castle. Notice the ancient equipment in the background!





In these next pictures you can see some of the beautiful country that surrounds Calatrava la Nueva.

As you can see it's very isolated and that fact adds to the feeling of power, solitude and majesty that the place evoked in me.

As this was also a monastery there is a church on site with a triple nave. It has a lovely rose window above the entrance.

Here's a picture from the inside of the church. It was fairly dark in there so most of the pictures did not turn out. You'll have to take my word for it that it is very beautifully restored.

The building was still in use as a monastery until 1802 when it was abandonded following fire damage.

This final picture from Calatrava la Nueva is of Salvatierra, a Muslim frontier fortress. It was captured by the Order of Calatrava in the 12th century. As we head further south to Andalusia we will find even more signs of Moorish presence and influence on the Iberian Peninsula.

Listen to Kyle MacLachlan and John Corigliano

John Corigliano, one of the finest and most widely recognized American composers, visited Washington State University as the guest composer at W.S.U.'s Festival of Contemporary Art Music, February 8-10th. He took the time to sit in the studio with me for an hour and talk about his music and his life. John has won about every kind of prize imaginable including Grammy Awards, the Academy Award for his score to "The Red Violin" and a Pulitzer Prize for his Second Symphony.

It was a privilege to speak with him and I found him to be thoughtful, thought-provoking and fun to hang out with! His insights into composition were especially thought provoking.


Feel free to sit in our conversation!

March brought actor Kyle MachLachlan to Yakima. It was a lot of fun speaking with him on the air via phone from Yakima. He is a very nice man with a great sense of humor.



Get Kyle here...well, not literally!

f# g f# e e d b d e

Every day I receive e-mails, letters, cards and phone calls from listeners asking me to help them find a particular piece of music. That's normal for someone who works at a radio station. However, I must share with you some of the ways in which people have asked for help because I find them creative, funny and sometimes downright challenging.

For instance, just last week I received an e-mail from a listener in regard to a particular piece heard in March. Unfortunately, the playlist for that particular date was missing and I could not retrieve the file from my computer.

Northwest Public Radio listeners being the creative people that they are, this particular man sent me an e-mail, some of which I include here.

"....if I remember rightly it had a melodic motif that went something like this:
f# g f# e e d b d e, with the second e being an octave lower than the first and third." This may go down as one of my more interesting requests! Not having perfect pitch I resorted to the help of a virtual keyboard.

I'm sorry to report that after listening to this melody about eight times I cannot identify it. It sounds familiar but it's turning out to be one of those "can't quite put my finger on it" moments.

Why don't you give it a try and let me know if you recognize it?

This experience made me think about some other interesting and fun requests I've received over the years. Here are a few favorites.

A listener taped music from a t.v. commercial onto a video tape, played the video, held the phone up to the video and asked me to identify the music. I can't remember now what the piece was but I do remember that I successfuly identified the piece.

I've had numerous listeners hum, sing, whistle or do something that approximates those things over the phone. Just recently this happened and I asked the listener to call back and sing it again on my voice mail because I didn't recognize it. I then forwarded the message to some of my colleagues at Northwest Public Radio but to no avail.

If you called, e-mailed or otherwise wrote to me with an unusual request it would be great to hear from you and for you to share your story with the other NWPR listeners.