Sep
17
Carlos Nuñez
Sept. 19, 8 p.m. | Centennial Theatre (North Vancouver)
Tickets and info: centennialtheatre.com
Smiling Spaniard Carlos Nuñez is a hugely charismatic, high-energy musician.
He’s been dubbed “the Hendrix of the bagpipes� for his prowess on the gaita (an ancient Spanish ancestor of Scottish pipes). To others, he’s “the seventh Chieftain� for records and tours with the Irish folk band that started when he was 18.
On top of that, the man is a walking musical encyclopedia, a master of flutes and reeds educated at Madrid’s Royal Conservatory, and a multi-Grammy and Latin Grammy winner. But it’s his enthusiasm for finding collaborators in unlikely corners of the world that makes him a great ambassador for Spanish and Celtic sounds.
Over 20 years of recording, he has worked with everyone from Laurie Anderson to Brazilian pop star Carlinhos Brown to Ry Cooder and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Cooder appears again on Nuñez’s recent Sony CD/DVD Inter-Celtic with Donal Lunny, Sharon Shannon, Altan and others.
For Friday’s concert at the Centennial Theatre in North Vancouver, Nuñez is bringing his quartet comprising his brother Xurxo Nuñez on percussion, Pancho Alvarez on guitar, and guest Canadian fiddler/stepdancer John Pilatzke.
Nuñez spoke on the phone from a tour stop in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Q: Is it fair to say that the place and time of your birth, in the city of Vigo, in Galicia on the northwest coast of Spain in 1971, have been central to your musical story?
A: Absolutely. The place was important because Galicia was the Celtic province of Spain, and Vigo, as a port city, gave us a very open mentality to the rest of the world. The great recording pioneer Alan Lomax said Galicia was the most international part of Spain and he understood it was important in contacts with the Americas. The timing was important because a greater cultural freedom arrived in Spain after Francisco Franco’s dictatorship ended in 1975. It brought a whole new spirit of desire to my generation. It’s something I feel in you people in Canada too, a spirit of hope for the future that’s closer to myself. That’s one reason I love playing with Canadian musicians. They feel that passion.
Q: I sense part of your musical mission is to expand people’s understanding of the breadth of Celtic culture.
A: It’s a pleasure and a responsibility to open new windows, but I have to say The Chieftains gave me many keys to take pride in my Celtic origins. When I was a teenager, (Chieftains leader) Paddy Moloney told me to go see the gaita (the Celtic pipes) in Cuba and gave me all these crazy ideas. I discovered a whole Latin American school of Celtic music in the same way the world discovered Spain had a Celtic province. Now when I go somewhere I like to look into the musical history, to help the musicians to play with us. Celtic music is also part of the story of Canada so we have to plug into that.
Q: Inter-Celtic is the name of the music festival in Brittany where you were introduced to The Chieftains as a teenager. Now it’s the title of your new anthology. What does Inter-Celtic mean?
A: The Celts in Brittany, France invented this idea that Celtic music is a community of different countries, but in our heart and minds we are of one world. When I was a kid there were seven Celtic nations — Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, Cornwall, Brittany and Galicia. But today, thanks to our contacts worldwide, I can tell you Brazil and Argentina, even Japan are part of the Celtic rim. Maybe it’s because we were immigrants. Over the centuries we had to reinvent our roots in new places. It’s a magical key to pull people together. The album is like a message, and the live recordings are like jam sessions between traditions. The concerts include a football stadium in Paris with 80,000 people, but it’s really a way to share our enjoyment of making music.
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