Naiet Cirerer is a blind romancero who pays homage to those blind people who used to go around villages telling and singing about what was going on, in a festive way, sometimes in the style of Bernat i Baldoví, and even speaking in broken Valencian or Spanish, provoking laughter and amusement among the people who listened to his romances, habaneras, peteneras, valencianas, malagueñas, etc. It was a way of reliving with good music and good lyrics those cool evenings that our ancestors were so grateful for. A show that leaves no one indifferent.  

Naiet Cirerer (vocals, turuta, flabiol and dulzaina), Pep Juste Mama (vocals and guitar), Eduard Navarro (bandurria, lute and dulzaina).

Urbàlia Rurana have been cultivating their particular style of traditional Valencian music for more than three decades, faithful to their founding idea of bringing this music closer to the influences of other countries on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Since 1990, they have performed on stages and at festivals all over the Iberian Peninsula and in many European countries, and have released seven albums, which have received awards and critical and public acclaim. The group, which has become one of the fundamental groups of Valencian folk music, has actively participated in the promotion and creation of roots music festivals (Cant al Ras de Massalfassar, Festacarrer de Ondara and Xàbia Folk, among others).

The group has collaborated with other prestigious groups and artists in shows and record productions: with the Catalan group Primera Nota (Folk nou, 1997), with the Piedmontese musician Maurizio Martinotti (Cante delle terre del riso, 2000; Territoris amables, 2002) and with the Valencian band La Romàntica del Saladar (La vespra i la festa). At present, he presents diverse repertoires in concert format (Sarau mediterrani and La vespra i la festa), dance (Sarau a la plaça) and even Christmas repertoire (Cançons de Nadal valencianes), as well as his anthological concert Urbàlia Rurana 30 anys de camí, a selection of songs from all his 7 recordings and other proposals for the future.

Jaume Gosàlbez (dulzaina, tarota, flute and vocals), Carles Gil (accordion, mandolins and vocals), Toni Torregrossa (guitar, guitarrón and vocals), Joan Buigues (tuba and vocals) and Bernat Pellisser (drums, percussion and vocals).

Krama, a band led by the Greek guitarist Spyros Kaniaris, explores modes and rhythms from the Balkans, Greece and the Black Sea, and creates a common ground where Mediterranean sonorities and songs intervene with convoluted rhythms and games with open and tense harmonies, in an approach that combines crisp sound universes with others full of serenity.

In this concert they will present works from their 15-year career and new compositions. In their music, traditional Greek instruments such as the lyre, the bouzouki, the sarangi coexist with eight-string guitars or the double bass, accompanied by percussion instruments (cajon, udu, tambourines). The lyrics of the songs are original in Valencian and by poets such as Vicent Andrés Estelles, Isabel Garcia Canet or translations into Valencian of the Greek poets Kostas Karyotakis and Odiseas Elytis.

Krama has participated in festivals such as Fira Mediterrània de Manresa, Polirítmia (València) ETNOMÚSIC (Valencia), Folk Segovia, Festival Internacional de Música de Gandia, Indrets Sonors, Espai Mediterrani, Fira de Vic, and have performed in Malta, Hungary, Germany, Egypt, and Algeria. They have received the Premi Ovidi Montllor 2010 and the Premi Mediterrània 2008 of the Fira d'Espectacles d'Arrel Tradicional Mediterrània de Manresa. 

Spyros Kaniaris (guitar, lyra de Pontos, sarangui), David Gadea (percussion), Rafel Arnal (vocals), Xuso Barberá (double bass).

Considered by critics as "the voice of the new generation of cante jondo", Rocío Márquez has spent more than a decade building a solid artistic career that today overflows the flamenco scene, where she is already a clear reference and consolidated figure. 

Her restless personality and enormous curiosity are evident in her discography, which across the board shows us both her great love for the flamenco tradition and her imperious need to expand the limits of that same tradition, exploring and experimenting with melodies, instrumentation, arrangements and lyrics. His work has been presented at the most renowned festivals on the flamenco circuit and at indie and pop/rock events such as Primavera Sound or Monkey Week, or venues such as the Matadero in Madrid or the CCCB in Barcelona. 

At ETNOMÚSIC she presents her project Tercer cielo, where Rocío Márquez has found as a partner Bronquio, a young musician from Jerez with a punk tradition and a figure on the Spanish electronic scene. Both create a mental and creative space-time framework in which the voice, the bodies, the breath, the machine, the magnetic field are linked by the umbilical cord of flamenco, with a clear voice and babbling in sound textures, modelling, electronic music resources and a lot of poetry, like that of García Lorca. 

Rocío Márquez (voices and bodies), Bronquio (programming and synthesizer).

Given the characteristics of the concert (dance music) the seating capacity will be much smaller than usual, i.e. the audience will be standing.

"Like someone who has been away from home for a long time and now returns with the curious gaze of a visitor, Maestro Espada immerses us in the musical tradition of his native Murcia to give birth to an exciting musical project in which analogue synthesizers combine with castanets and lutes, and prove that electronics can also be folklore". 

With these words, the brothers Alejandro and Víctor Hernández present us with this singular project in which two voices that have been sounding together all their lives come together and open up a way to approach folklore not as a relic but as a source of inspiration, a new material made up of seeds and roots that improve musical biodiversity.

Their songs are sung and hummed like the Arabic verses that have been sung for centuries in the orchards of Murcia. Their lyrics surf traditional notes and structure, which merge with more experimental noises and sounds, in a rediscovery of traditional folklore, without limitations or preconceived ideas. Creating something new, trying not to let what is known condition the form. 

Alejandro Hernández (vocals, synthesizer and castanets), Víctor Hernández (vocals and castanets).

Antonio Castrignanò, a native of Galatina (Puglia, Italy) defines himself as an author, composer and musician. He approached the folk music of Salento in its early days and, instead of mimicking this phenomenon that was growing around him, he marked a turning point in the exaggerated "pizzica" fever unleashed by the ancestral dance so called that attracted tourists and all kinds of audiences, and chose to experiment with the contemporary in a very personal style. 

After more than a decade of work as a musician in Italy and internationally, in 2010 he released his first solo album (Mara la fatia), a collection of evocative songs, a fusion of tradition and innovation that is a manifesto of the author's musical poetics. 

In 2014 he released his second solo album (Fomenta), in which his great attraction for both Salento tradition and contemporary music form a perfect and extremely balanced blend. This tendency, typical of Castrignanò's style, is also present in the subsequent EP, also produced by Ponderosa, Aria Caddhipulina.

Antonio Castrignanò has collaborated with artists such as Stewart Copeland, Ludovico Einaudi and Ballakè Sissoko and has created soundtracks for film projects. He performs on the stages of prestigious national and international festivals and has become an important reference for the rediscovery of the traditional music of Salento from a contemporary perspective. 

Antonio Castrignanò (voice and tambourine), Rocco Nigro (accordion), Giuseppe Spedicato (bass and mandola), Gianni Gelao (bagpipe and bouzouki), Luigi Marra (violin), Maurizio Pelizzari (guitar and mandolin). 

 
Header photo: Salvatore Coluccia

Efrén López has a long musical career and has played in groups such as L'Ham de Foc, Aman Aman, Sabir, Evo, Trio Petrakis-López-Chemirani, etc. In the year of ETNOMUSIC's 20th anniversary, the multi-instrumentalist and composer comes together in this unique encounter with some of the best performers and composers with whom he has collaborated most closely in recent years, all of them leading names in their respective musical traditions (Greek, Persian, Breton or Castilian). A cosmopolitan ensemble of musicians who draw the musical geographies to which Efrén López has travelled, studied and from which he has drawn inspiration to create his own themes. 

The group is made up of the singer and multi-instrumentalist Isabel Martín ─ member of the Toledan duo Milo ke Mandarini─, the Cretan virtuoso musician and luthier Stelios Petrakis, the Greek kanun player Sofia Labropoulou, the Iranian-French percussionist Keyvan Chemirani, the great Breton flautist Sylvain Barou and the double bass player Alejandro Royo from Castellón come together to give life to their original pieces from the last decade, in a framework of close complicity and communication, through virtuosity and improvisation, making use of a colourful instrumental and interpretative range always at the service of the music.

Efrén López (ud, rabab, hurdy-gurdy, oğur saz, laouto, cistro, voice and direction), Isabel Martín (voice, bendir, tambourine and tambourine), Stelios Petrakis (lyra and lavta), Sofia Labropoulou (kanun), Keyvan Chemirani (zarb and daf), Sylvain Barou (flute, bansuri, duduk, uilleann pipes, zurna and dilli kaval), Alejandro Royo (double bass).

Headline photo: @Laura Soriano

KILEMA is a musician from Madagascar with more than forty years of experience in world music. Always faithful to the cultural tradition of his country, this vocalist, composer and multi-instrumentalist works especially with the indigenous instruments of the south of Madagascar.

From his residence in Cordoba, he has projected his music to the five continents. More than forty countries have been able to enjoy his rich personal style that fuses a multitude of influences, without losing the purity of his Malagasy roots. Four albums on the market summarise his recording career, but experts always highlight the strength of his live concerts: he is a born communicator with an extraordinary ability to connect with all kinds of audiences and backgrounds.

Today, this global ambassador of Malagasy culture combines his work as a musician with an important pedagogical work in which he carries out workshops for children and families, and a great deal of solidarity and aid work for disadvantaged communities. 

Marked by a didactic character, the concert will bring us closer to the instruments, rhythms, harmonies and words of his country as an excuse to propose universal values such as respect, solidarity, interculturalism and sustainability.  

Kilema (marovany, valiha, kabosy, katsá and vocals), Nesa Randrianantoandro (vocals, melodica and katsá), Manuel Luque (percussion), Carlos Léon (bass and vocals).

*Concert performed in collaboration with the SARC (Área de Cultura de la Diputación de Valencia).

Mujeres con Raíz (Women with Roots) was born at the end of 2014 to pay a well-deserved tribute to the traditional voice of Murcian women, the owners of a large part of the oral heritage of the southeast of the peninsula. Women's voices that most of the time were relegated to the domestic sphere through lullabies, or also to intimate and family prayers; but who also worked, like men, and then threw their harvest and threshing songs to the wind. Either they asked the heavens for water or they celebrated with malagueñas, jotas and seguidillas. Women, in short, who set all ages of life to music.

The project is presented as a look at space and time in which female voices bring us closer to the east and west of each day, recognising in it our past and our destiny, that of the everyday stories told and sung by all and that of the geographies travelled by the members of the group from their different trajectories, travelling from east to west and from north to south through the territory of Murcia, to build a project to recover and listen to this musical repertoire. 

Carmen María Martínez (vocals and castanets), Mari Cruz Sánchez (vocals), Tomás García (guitar, guitarrón, tambourines, cymbals and backing vocals), Juan José Robles (guitar, guitar, lute and backing vocals), R. Enrique González (percussion and backing vocals).

*Concert included in the ETNOMUSIC ALS POBLES cycle.

Silento is a duo formed by the Valencian musicians Celina Jiménez and Ana Ferrer, two artists who began performing together at a very young age and over the years have performed in different countries as a duo. Based in Berlin, Celina Jiménez works as a lyric singer and has performed in emblematic venues such as the Juan March Foundation in Madrid and the main hall of the Berlin Philharmonic. Ana Ferrer, guitarist and composer, graduated in classical guitar at the ESMUC (Barcelona) and holds a Master's degree in Music from the UPV. Beyond their training and activity, both show a great interest in musical traditions and experimentation. 

Their concerts are characterised by creating a close and emotional atmosphere, with a careful selection of repertoire that includes folk pieces, singer-songwriters' songs, their own compositions and traditional music, all of them arranged with a personal language full of creativity. 

In De València i ultramar, with an intimate and acoustic format (two voices, a guitar and small percussions), Silento offers a concert fed by a selection of their own compositions and original arrangements that cover multiple fields: the copla of Concha Piquer, Sephardic music, traditional Valencian songs related to everyday work or parenting, the poetic world of Federico García Lorca, the decadence of the Viennese waltz, or Argentine tangos. 

Celina Jiménez (voice and percussion), Ana Ferrer (guitar).

*Concert included in the Cicle Música en construcció of the Área de Cultura de la Diputación de Valencia. Before the concert (5:00 p.m.) there will be a visit to the exhibition It's not easy to be Valencian, a permanent exhibition at L'ETNO, Museu Valencià d'Etnologia.