Paco Peña embodies both authenticity and innovations in flamenco performances. As guitarist, composer, dramatist, producer and artistic mentor, he has transformed perceptions of an archetypal Spanish art form. In 1981, he founded the Centro Flamenco Paco Peña in Cordoba, later becoming Artistic Director of the Córdoba International Guitar Festival.

 

 

Since 1970, Paco Peña has performed regularly with his own hand-picked company of dancers, guitarists and singers in a succession of ground breaking performances. The Paco Peña Flamenco Dance Company has taken flamenco into the realm of music-theatre with regular seasons in London (Royal Festival Hall, Sadler’s Wells Theatre and Barbican) and festival appearances in Edinburgh, Adelaide, Amsterdam, Athens, Israel, Istanbul, Singapore and Hong Kong.

 

1999 brought out the most ambitious production yet: Musa Gitana. Peña created the piecebased on the life and work of another artist from Córdoba, painter Julio Romero de Torres. Its seven-week season at the Peacock Theatre in London's West End stood as the longest-ever run of a flamenco performances and another London season followed in Spring 2001.

 

Another landmark was Misa Flamenca, a 1991 setting of the Mass that juxtaposed Peña’s company with a classical choir. Its premiere at London’s Royal Festival Hall, given with the Choir of the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, was followed by a staging at the 1992 EXPO in Seville. Misa Flamenca has also been seen in Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and USA.

 

 

 

Paco Peña’s Flamenco Requiem, which again marrying flamenco with other forms of classical music, came about following his participation in various music festivals, over many years, performing Misa Flamenca. The Salisbury Festival, convinced him to write a requiem, true to the orthodox tradition of such works, but giving it a different treatment as well. He composed the Requiem for the Earth, building its context with this in mind, and therefore giving this work a social commentary.

 

Paco Peña is based in London, but still spends a significant part of the year in his native Andalucía.