Mayte Martín, cantaora de flamenco.
Interview
“The Labèque sisters
didn't choose the most high-profile artist, nor the most
flamenco-looking”
Silvia Calado. Madrid, July 2008
Mayte
Martín combines her cante flamenco with classical
music. The cantaora was sought out by prestigious pianists
Katia and Marielle Labèque. Following “a
kind of casting based on recorded work”, they chose
her voice for a project based on Spanish music. Later,
the three worked together to plan a journey that would
lead to the album ‘De fuego y de agua’. Paco
de Lucía, Juan Valderrama, Lorca, Falla, Granados,
Rafael de León and Mayte Martín herself
are some of the flavors that infuse the album, with arrangements
by Joan Albert Amargós. Although over and above
the fire and water music, what you really notice here
is their sensitivity.
Mayte Martín,
Katia Labèque and Marielle Labèque (Photo
KML Records)
How did you get together?
They came looking for me. They wanted
to do a Spanish music project. They did a kind of casting
based on recorded work - they bought albums by everyone
doing flamenco. And after listening to all of it they
decided the right person for the project was me. They
found me via Joan Albert Amargós, who they'd chosen
to do the arrangements on the album. They asked him if
he knew me, he told them he did and that he'd make the
first call himself, to see if I was interested in doing
this with them. To me it came as a surprise, and it's
been really exciting and so beautiful. I wanted to meet
them, to get a gut feeling about the whole thing, not
just on a musical level. It was the start of an adventure
with someone and you have to feel comfortable and relaxed
with the people you're traveling with. And really I met
two women, two fascinating human beings with an overwhelming
sensitivity. The adventure was marvelous; the whole creative
process was really beautiful, with a wonderful mutual
respect, something very important.
Did they have a specific repertoire
drawn up already?
Not at all. They had some suggestions,
and later other ideas started cropping up, for example
the inclusion of other tracks of mine. Katia asked me
to compose some songs of my own for the album. And I told
her I already had some that hadn't been released, that
I hadn't done, and that had a classical flavor that might
work really well with the idea. They're ‘Gacela
del amor imprevisto’, ‘Soneto de amor’
and ‘Acaríciame por dentro’. They were
already arranged for a string quintet and what Joan Albert
did was to adapt them for two pianos, but staying faithful
to the original arrangements. The four classical songs
were also an idea that came up later, it wasn't planned.
I came across twenty or twenty-five classical songs, by
Granados, by Rodrigo... And I chose the ones I liked best
- which incidentally were also the same ones they liked.
There was a whole series of wonderful coincidences, we
agreed on everything and that's how we defined the album,
the show, the artwork. We decided we wanted something
really intimate and tranquil, and that it was beautiful
to have just the two pianos and a voice. The three of
us gradually pieced everything together. The most exciting
and the most beautiful thing was giving birth to the project.
Once it's born you can enjoy the result... But the journey
to get there was the most beautiful thing.
Mayte Martín, Katia
Labèque and Marielle Labèque
(Photo KML Records)
You revisit the odd track from
‘Querencia’...
Yes, they love 'Vidalita', they wanted
to do a version of that tune. And to me it seemed fantastic.
Valderrama
is still inside me... and now he's traveling into the
realms of classical music.
Where's the flamenco in this
project?
It's me. The sound of the phrasing and
the sound of my voice at times when flamenco lies beneath
- it just creeps out. But there was no intention on the
album. We never leaned toward flamenco and we never shied
away from it. We never leaned toward classical and we
never shied away from it. We just let it all come out
the way it did, and this is the result. And the important
thing is like always, that it's done with taste and that
it's the result of artistic curiosity and of love. That's
one thing that's really clear and it's the best thing
about the album.
There's a piece by Paco
de Lucía: ‘Canción de amor’.
What does this musician mean to you?
| |
|
| "Paco
de Lucía is a very intelligent person; he
constitutes the boundary line between vintage and
modern" |
| |
Paco de Lucía is a key figure
in the world of flamenco. He's a very intelligent person;
he constitutes the boundary line between vintage and modern.
He's a major, major figure.
And there's also poetry. By Lorca,
by Rafael de León...
Rafael de León is my favorite,
he's the poet of my life. Not Lorca. I like some things
Lorca did, but the one who always makes my hair stand
on end, no matter what I read, is Rafael de León.
How did this album affect your
approach to singing?
Things like that are so subtle that you
can only perceive them over time. You only realize in
time what you learned and what you drew from the experience.
It's too soon to notice. Whatever, it's only just entered
my neurons and my cells. We'll see in due course.
And did the adventure in flamenco
and Spanish classical music affect them?
I think if you asked them they'd tell
you the same thing. I'm sure the three of us have all
enriched one another, but I think these are subtleties
you only notice with the passing of time.
Mayte Martín, Katia
Labèque and Marielle Labèque
(Photo KML Records)
Do you think this album could
help to put flamenco on the map internationally?
I hope so - I hope it could bring flamenco
to the forefront of international music. And above all
I think you have to appreciate the fact that they didn't
choose the most high-profile artist, nor the most flamenco-looking.
They're people that come from a world that's alien to
flamenco, and it's always more usual for them to approach
flamenco in its more stereotypical form. I guess the good
thing is that they chose the voice without being influenced
by anything else. As for taking it to the stage, I don't
think they really identified with the ornamental combs
and the whole bit. They were looking for something else,
someone they felt comfortable and relaxed with on the
project. They didn't choose a show-stopper, and they didn't
just go for the traditional look.
Is the live show ready?
| |
|
| "It's
getting harder and harder to do your own thing with
integrity in the music business" |
| |
We already premièred it. Yes,
we do concerts and things, the thing is that in the music
business today it's really hard to sell something practically
impossible to classify. A festival director doesn't know
where to fit a show like that in because it isn't flamenco
and it isn't classical. It’s a headache for them.
It's difficult to promote things that don't have a gimmick.
It's getting harder and harder to do your own thing with
integrity in the music business. But in the end the music
gives you what going on stage took away from you. Even
so, we presented it at El Escorial near Madrid on 24th
July, the following day in the Castle at Fuengirola, and
then in September we're going to Köln.
What point do you feel you've
reached artistically after projects like this one or ‘AlCANTARara
Manuel’?
A really happy, really productive point,
with a strong urge to share my latest projects and the
latest changes in my soul. With a hope that people will
listen to ‘De fuego y de agua’, that they'll
see it, that they'll see my show with the poems by Manuel
Alcántara... the truth is I'm at a really good
point, really productive, really pleased with everything.
They also say that the higher you climb the further you
have to fall. When you're really excited about something,
you're also very afraid of disappointments, that people
won't appreciate things as much as you do.
I hope it doesn't happen.
