The Festival de Jerez is the foremost Flamenco and Spanish Dance Festival in the world. In 2021, it celebrates its 25th edition, making it one of the longest-running festivals of its kind. Every year, thousands of flamenco dance students descend on Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, to attend festival masterclasses taught by the most sought-after masters of flamenco.

This May, the US-based streaming company Third Row Live partners with the Festival de Jerez to broadcast a selection of its 25th edition’s lineup for a global audience. Both the Festival de Jerez and Third Row’s parent company, Laudable, have restructured their operations in 2020-21 in order to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and to continue to support artists and the performing arts industry.

If flamenco and Spanish dance students and fans can’t come to the historic Villamarta Theatre, Third Row will bring the performances at the Villamarta to a global audience through a collection of festival live streams. Because of the pandemic, many of the performances that have been selected for streaming likely will not be able to tour as widely as they deserve, but this collaboration between the Festival de Jerez and Third Row presents a once in a lifetime opportunity to see some of Spain’s finest and most lauded performers and their newest masterworks from the comfort and safety of home, no matter where on Earth that home is located.

Folk-futurist and award-winning vocalist, songwriter and producer, Sofía Rei weaves a deft and complicated tapestry of musical styles — a self-described pond-hopper when it comes to genre — whose training as an opera singer, fascination with Argentine folk traditions, and profound immersion in the multi-cultural mecca of New York City have all contributed to the music she plays today. Her collaborations are wide-ranging and studded with luminaries; like John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Bobby McFerrin, John Medeski, Susana Baca, and Pedrito Martinez.

She joins us in Florence with a new quartet ensemble including frequent collaborator JC Maillard (bass) , the virtuosic Jorge Glem (cuatro), and fellow Argentine Leo Genovese (piano). They will be presenting music from her new future-folk project Umbral ("threshold"). The project was recently featured on Tiny Desk and it is A-MAZING.

"...a latin folkloric encyclopedia right in the heart of New York City." -VICE

ABOUT THIS GATHERING:
The backyard of the Florence Congregational Church is centrally located and provides us with generous and ample space to enjoy music, enjoy each other's company, and also continue following state guidelines regarding social distancing. Guests are asked to wear masks. Due to limited capacity, we regrettably have to charge a youth ticket for kids ($10).

5PM picnic. Music at 7PM. Food pop-up TBA.

ABOUT UMBRAL:
In her most recent project, an exhaustive exploration of the voice as an instrument of texture and expression, Sofía Rei breaks away from the established continuity of her work, creating a daring new soundscape that blends South American folk with pop, electronic music and improvisation.

A soul-searching trip to the Elqui Valley in Chile Sofía, armed with only two back packs of recording equipment and her charango, she created the core of her newest musical venture: “Umbral” (Threshold). Her unorthodox compositions are built almost exclusively from vocal loops and incorporate the series “Cinco poemas cínicos” (Five Cynical Poems), in which the songwriter displays her natural inclination towards lyricism. Incisive and imaginative, Sofia’s poetry responds to heartbreak, deception and disappointment with unrestrained candor, elegant humor and a heavy dose of sarcasm.

Ravid Kahalani’s Yemen Blues project begins and ends with the singer’s rhapsodic voice and a Yemeni accent acquired from childhood religious singing — but everything in the middle is global, funky, and outrageous. Kahalani is part Prince, part James Brown, and his music reaches into Moroccan gnawa, Nigerian afrobeat, ecstatic jazz, and global soul. Traditional folkways and devotional song intersect effortlessly with heavy grooves and transcendental jams.

“Some acts are so unique, so hard to describe, they even go so far as to invent their own language” -Time Out

In this quartet iteration,  Ravid Kahalani (guembri) is accompanied by Shanir Blumenkrantz (bass, oud), as well as trumpet and drums.

ABOUT THIS GATHERING:

The backyard of the Florence Congregational Church is centrally located and provides us with generous and ample space to enjoy music, enjoy each other's company, and also continue following state guidelines regarding social distancing. Guests are asked to wear masks.

5PM picnic. Music at 7PM. Food pop-up TBA.

With generous support by the Consulate General of Israel to New England.