Miguel Ochando

Miguel Ochando is a rising star of the new generation of flamenco guitar soloists, who has come to play in the Festival from his native Granada, in Andalusia, the home of the ancient mystery-infused art form. His latest album sees him teaming up with one of the most respected flamenco cantaores in the business, Enrique Morente, a great revolutionary who has done much to take flamenco into the new millennium, by blending it with different musical styles from rock to Gregorian chanting. This is likely to catapult Ochando into the major league of flamenco guitarists in Spain.

Ochando will be playing solo in Lewes, attempting to bring the mysterious element of ‘duende’ into the All Saints. Duende is the spirit of flamenco, summed up by the great poet Federico Garcia Lorca in these words. “All through Andalusia people speak constantly of duende and recognise it with unfailing instinct when it appears. There is no greater truth… These dark sounds are the mystery, the roots thrusting into the fertile loam known to all of us, ignored by all of us, but from what we get what is real in art. It is a matter of real live form; of blood; of ancient culture; of creative action.” Duende is hard to achieve: we hope that Ochando will be capable of reaching out and plucking its mysterious fruit tonight.