Manolo Sanlúcar (1943-present)
Medea (ballet score, 1984; two guitars and orchestra concerto, 2002; solo guitar and orchestra concerto, 2012
"Sanlúcar’s score for Medea made the composer feel like he’d finally arrived at a style of playing that sounded like “flamenco dressed in tails.”
Manuel (Manolo) Muñoz Alcón was born on Nov. 24, 1943, one of six children, in the seaside town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, near Cádiz, Spain. His father, Isidro, was a baker and a traditional-style Spanish guitarist who played with the legendary singer Pepe Marchena.
“My mother put me in the crib and my father grabbed the guitar and started playing for me,” said Manolo. “Because of this familiarity and these customs and habits at home, the guitar meant a lot to me. During my childhood, there were certain moments when I understood the guitar as if it were a member of the family since it was always around. It was everywhere.”
Isidro introduced Manolo at age 7 to flamenco guitar, an instrument that allows the guitarist to play easier and faster, with bright, vibrant tones that rise above the heel-stamping of flamenco dancing. Manolo’s father frequently brought home friends who enjoyed playing and singing flamenco music, all of which set the stage for Manolo’s passion for flamenco. He made his professional debut at age 12.
But like many serious flamenco guitarists, they believe they must spend a decade accompanying dancers and another decade with singers before playing solo. Manolo did just that, putting in the work necessary to become a premier flamenco musician. His diligence led to the development of his astonishing technique.
Manolo adopted the stage name Sanlúcar (after his home town), and started playing concerts and recitals across Spain. At 18, he began experimenting with the boundaries of his art form, reshaping flamenco in new, daring ways. He said, “We realized that the guitar needed to be harmonically enriched; flamenco guitar [at the time] was harmonically impoverished.”
After delving into “easy listening” and pop, which became known as nuevo flamenco, Sanlúcar immersed himself in what would become his legacy—a complex integration of flamenco and classical music that never loses sight of his cultural heritage.
Sanlúcar’s remarkable talent for both composing and playing, his purity of sound, and technical expertise shot him to the top of flamenco musicians. His virtuosic style shifted smoothly from contemporary to traditional to avant-garde. Among his more prominent works are: Fantasía para guitarra y orquesta, Trebujena, Soleá, and Medea.
Sanlúcar initially wrote the one-hour ballet score for Medea—a story inspired by Seneca’s portrayal of the Greek myth about the sorceress Medea who took revenge on her deceitful husband, Jason—for the Ballet Nacional de España.
“As I was learning Medea,” said Sanlúcar, “I found that to play it in a strictly classical style did not quite convincingly project the emotional content of the music. I found that a little more of a flamenco touch not only sounded better, but that it was indeed necessary. I finally arrived at a style of playing, that to my ears, sounded something like ‘flamenco dressed in tails.’”
The ballet successfully premièred in the Teatro de la Zarzuela, Madrid, on July 13, 1984, and later toured worldwide. From the ballet’s score, Sanlúcar arranged a concerto-length suite of Medea, conceived for two guitars and orchestra. It premiered on Oct. 2, 2002 at the Maestranza in Seville, with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Malaga performing, and Leo Brouwer conducting.
Consisting of six movements (Obertura, Reencuentro y Desencuentro, Seducción, Conjuro, La Venganza and Fiesta), the work is many things: deeply emotional, dramatic, spiritual, haunting, evocative and mighty. It manages to dwell within the classical genre while simultaneously delivering the quintessential beauty and intensity of flamenco music. North African and Arabic influences are also heard, especially in the percussion.
Sanlúcar permitted virtuoso guitarist Manuel Barrueco to arrange and record a version of Medea for solo guitar and orchestra. Barreuco performed his arrangement with Spain’s prominent conductor Víctor Pablo Pérez, and the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra on Nov. 30, 2012. In 2013, the album, “Medea—Spanish guitar music by Albéniz, Granados and Sanlúcar”, received a Latin Grammy nomination as Best Classical Album.
That same year at the age of 70, Sanlúcar retired. While no longer performing, his rich legacy continues to reverberate through other living legends of flamenco guitar (among them, Pepe Romero). Sanlúcar’s lifelong quest to blend flamenco and symphonic music has profoundly influenced the evolution of flamenco guitar making him one of today’s most important Spanish composers.
“Flamenco is a philosophy, the way of thinking and feeling of a whole people and its historical tradition,” said Sanlucar, whose desire “for the orchestra to take on the feeling of the flamenco and, as if it were a sole instrument, communicate that spirit and magic sound of flamenco” came true.
Jayce Keane, who began her career as a journalist for The Rocky Mountain News, has been working in the orchestra industry and writing about music for 18 years. A longtime resident of California, she now lives in Colorado.
