HOT TIP: For a flamenco guitar with a powerful sound, consider the work of Andrés Marvi

In February, 2006, New York City based musician Paul Jared Newman discovered the deep, rich sound produced by a guitar made by Andrés Marvi. It was love at first listen. He immediately decided he had to have a Marvi guitar. With a little web surfing, Jared found Marvi's website http://www.ad-marvi.com/ which informed him that Marvi works in Ferreirola in the Alpujarras, a mountain range south-east of Granada, Spain.

Largely self-taught, Andres Marvi has been making guitars for 25 years, eighteen of those years in Spain. But his career took an upswing when the firm ENCUENTRO produced a video in 2004 featuring the great Flamenco guitarist Gerardo Núñez playing one of Marvi's "negras." Jared  commissioned a flamenco guitar from him with the aim that he could play both classical and flamenco.  Marvi's flamenco guitars offer both the warmth and sustain associated with classical music as well as the percussive attack of flamenco.

Jared and I set off to the Alpujarras to pick up the guitar in late August/September so that we could enjoy the opening of the flamenco Biennal in Sevilla right afterwards. When we met  Andrés (known as Andy), he was newly back from the Black Forest in Germany where he was born, and pressured by a deadline to finish 3 more guitars to deliver to a customer in Korea.  Andy lives above "El Cueva de la Mora Luna," a piano bar locally known as Carlos'. We stayed in an unforgettable bed and breakfast "Sierra y Mar" in Ferreirola (population approximately 30!). Known as the last hideout of the Moors, the Alpujarras are respectful of the Moorish ingenuity in both their terracing of the hills, the irrigation system known as "acequias", and the architecture.

Enthralled with Marvi's guitars, perhaps even better than imagined, Jared was transported. We circled by Sevilla for the opening of the biennal directed with exquisite taste by Mario Maya and classes with Eliza Marquez. Upon return to New York, Jared heard such comments from dancers as, "I don't know if it's your playing or the guitar. It's so inspiring. It makes me want to dance."

by Deirdre Towers

photo: author Deirdre Towers (right) with guitarist Paul Jared Newman (left) and guitar maker Andrés Marvi. (middle)

Deirdre Towers (Dancer/Choreographer) has danced and choreographed in a wide spectrum of styles for decades, performing at venues ranging from the Plaza Hotel for private parties to Washington Square Church with the late gypsy singer Rafael Fajardo, as produced by World Music Institute, to La Cueva de Luna Mora in Andalucia, as filmed by the BBC.
  A teaching artist for City Center since 2003, she taught flamenco history/rhythms for Maria Benitez at her Institute of Spanish Arts in New Mexico for seven summers. American Ballet Theater employed Deirdre as a teacher of dance for the camera for their Summer Intensive for four years and at Frederick Douglass Academy for two years.
   Currently the Executive Director of Dance Films Association, Ms. Towers directs the internationally touring Dance On Camera Festival in collaboration with The Film Society of Lincoln Center. Trained in multiple dance studios in New York, Sevilla, and Accra, Ghana, she holds a BA from Hamilton College, and a MA from New York University.

Ms Towers will be contributing another piece for Root about her trip to this year's Flamenco Bienal in Spain.

Comments

[spaintraveldeals]

Spain is probably my favorite place to travel to. Exotic, adventurous, fun and full of flavor! Thanks for the nice writeup!