The Secrets of Andalusia

We know that key influences on Flamenco date back

to Islamic Iberia or the Al-Andalusian era of Spain

between the 8th-15th centuries. Yet the first mention

of Flamenco by name is not until 1774, where it

appears in an epistolary novel, Cartas Marruecas, by

the playwright and soldier, Jose de Cadalso y Vazquez. In collaboration on with soprano Victoria Couper, kanun

player, Konstantin nos Glynos, and oud/Flamenco

guitarist, Ignacio Lusardi Monteverde, this album seeks

to explore this question by tracing the influences on

Flamenco through Arabic music alongside Sephardic

song and the Spanish composers of the late-16th to

18th centuries. What happened in these intervening centuries?