Diego El Cigala November 5, 2011

Full details at http://www.ums.org/s_current_season/artist.asp?pageid=660
“Flamenco has to be suffered,” Diego El Cigala asserted in a New York Times interview. “How do you convey emotions from within your heart if you don’t know what suffering is? If there is no evidence of pain in your heart, there is no song.” Nicknamed “El Cigala” (Norway Lobster) for his thin frame and strong voice, Diego is an internationally celebrated Gitano flamenco singer and contemporary flamenco’s most compelling voice. His mother and father were both accomplished practitioners of flamenco, as were his grandparents. He started off singing for well-known flamenco dancers but has since “moved to the front,” which in flamenco slang means to sing on one’s own instead of accompanying a dancer. He is noted for being a pioneer in fusing flamenco with other Latin American music forms such as the bolero, Afro-Caribbean jazz, and tango. His latest project, Cigala & Tango, is the musical testimony to his concert at the legendary Teatro Gran Rex in Buenos Aires last April. The legendary Paco de Lucía says, “Diego has one of the most beautiful flamenco voices of our time, a voice of sweetness that flows over everything. When I listen to him, it warms my heart.” The New York Times adds, “He radiates a magnetic mix of winking charm and unpredictable vitriol reminiscent of a singer from an entirely different milieu, Frank Sinatra.”