An important part of the classical guitar repertoire of the 20th century is made up of works whose main source of inspiration is traditional Spanish popular music. This term refers –as opposed to what could be called academic or artistic music– to the songs and dances of popular roots that are preferably located in rural areas of the Spanish geography and that are transmitted orally. The creative formula, which thrived successfully since the second half of the 19th century, has been maintained without interruption throughout different generations of composers who have been incorporating their own voices.
This research proposal, as well as the choice of methods of analysis, diagnosis and exposition, is motivated by two perspectives. On the one hand, it aims to be a research work that responds to some omissions that had been detected when approaching previous studies and which have to do with the scarce attention to the primary sources that inspired these authors and their compositions or, similarly, the absence of studies of the whole or other resources that incorporate the novelties and advances in the field of ethnomusicology and which could serve as a guide to understand and structure this vast repertoire with objective and practical criteria. However, there are only occasional and scattered works that sometimes focus on the most recognized works and genres of Spanish music, but which, at the same time, frequently offer a distorted vision of the heritage of the popular musical tradition in the classic academic production, as they are limited to archetypes –such as some flamenco moulds, jotas, boleros or habaneras, for example– which reflect a simplified, picturesque and costumbrist vision of a richer and more complex reality.
On the other hand, this project is also linked to an artistic activity as a classical guitar performer and should result in the creation of proposals based on the musicological conclusions of the research. It raises the need to reflect from our own time on questions such as the enriched dialogue established between artistic creation and the music of popular tradition or on the new value that this guitar repertoire can acquire today. Precisely, one of the fundamental proposals of this research aims to calibrate the degree of dependence on the source from which it is derived, in most cases hidden and silenced by the composers themselves. Bringing these primary sources to light does not detract in any way from the value of the works they inspired, but, beyond their documentary and musicological interest, they can be of great help to us in our work as performers, as they reveal clues that can sometimes go unnoticed.
Vita
Silvia Escamilla Jiménez (Madrid, 1998) completed the Classical Guitar Bachelor Degree (2020) and Master's Degree in Performance and Research of Spanish Music (2021) at the Royal Music Conservatory of Madrid with Professor Javier Somoza. She has also completed —with Cum Laude qualification— the Master in Classical Guitar Performance and Research at the Koninklijk Conservatorium-Royal Conservatoire of the University of the Arts in The Hague with Professor Pavel Steidl (2022). Currently, she is pursuing a PhD in the Universitat für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Graz in collaboration with the Zurich University of the Arts.
She has given recitals and masterclasses at festivals in cities in Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Croatia, Slovakia and Slovenia. For instance, in the Second Edition of the Festival de Música Ribera Alta del Ebro (2022), in the 2022-2023 Guitar Recital Season programmed by the Spanish Guitar Society or in 14th MAGfestival International Chamber Music Festival at Hrvatski Dom, Split. She has also performed for institutions, including the Fundación Don Juan de Borbón (Ciclo 921 Distrito Musical) or the Instituto Cervantes in Stockholm. She has won prizes and awards in various international guitar competitions such as the Third Prize at the Visegrad Guitar Competition (Bratislava, Slovakia, 2021) or the First Prize of the Internationales Gitarrenfestival (Tübingen, Germany, 2021). Her works and research articles, focused on the dialogue between tradition and modernity in musical composition, have been published in specialized media such as the magazine Roseta, published by the Spanish Guitar Society, and the Koninklijk Conservatorium Research Catalogue of the University of the Arts in The Hague. She has received several scholarships for academic excellence and for postgraduate studies abroad.
Silvia Escamilla plays with a guitar by luthier Yunah Park (Madrid) from 2019.