Rafael Riqueni

Description

Presents his new work Nerja
One of the greatest musical geniuses in Spain
Nerja is the new work of Rafael Riqueni, a descriptive fantasy based on impressionism and the closeness to classical music that have defined much of his career.

Nerja takes place in the form of a story, this tells the story of the group of young people who discovered the monumental cave in 1959 after a chance incident. Riqueni interprets what happened that night from a fascinating harmonic concept where he expands the currents of Spanish romanticism starting from a direct conjunction with elements of flamenco.

Rafael Riqueni
Rafael Riqueni was born on August 16, 1962 in Seville. At the age of twelve he offered his first performances as a soloist and at the age of fourteen he won the two main national guitar awards, the Ramón Montoya for Concert Guitar at the VIII Córdoba Competition, and the first prize at the VI National Guitar Competition. Sherry. In 1981 he would win first prize again in Jerez.

In 1986, Riqueni published what would be the first chapter of one of the most celebrated discographies in the history of flamenco and Spanish music, Juego de Niños, where he offered some new harmonic and composition concepts that began to define his unmistakable style with classical influences. His next album, Flamenco, became an object of worship for generations of guitarists. In 1990 came his definitive consecration with Mi Tiempo, where Riqueni also composed string arrangements that acted as an extension of his guitar. The next album will be Suite Sevilla, in 1993, a conceptual work inspired by flamenco and conceived under the classical influence of Spanish musical nationalism, it is possibly the first work that successfully fused flamenco and classical. In 1994, Rafael Riqueni published Maestros, where he pays tribute to Niño Ricardo, Sabicas and Esteban de Sanlúcar.

Alcázar de Cristal in 1996, became his last album for twenty-one years. After the meeting with Paco Bech, it was in 2014 that the Flamenco Biennial became the setting for his desired reappearance; his performance of Amarguras resulted in one of the most celebrated moments of the festival. Rafael Riqueni will receive the Giraldillo of the Biennial for Master's Degree, for his very Sevillian universal music, which places him among the greatest masters in the history of the guitar.

At the end of 2015 he presented the play Parque de María Luisa at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, with a concert that was a historic success and in which he received unanimous acclaim from critics. The new and seventh album by Rafael Riqueni is published with Universal Music in 2017, Parque de María Luisa thus becomes the return of one of the greatest geniuses to emerge from music in Spain, with the work in which he evokes the memories of the emblematic Eden from his hometown. Likewise in 2017, Rafael Riqueni receives the XXXI Compás del Cante, while the main newspapers and specialized media place Parque de María Luisa as a masterpiece and the best flamenco guitar album in recent history.

In 2020, Rafael Riqueni presents his new album Herencia at the Lope de Vega Theater in Seville, to then embark on a national and international tour. After his performance at the XXIV Jerez Festival, Riqueni won the edition's Guitarra con Alma award, and at the XXI Flamenco Biennial, it awarded him the Giraldillo Ciudad de Sevilla. In April 2021 he premieres a new show, Suite Sevilla, Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra, a symphonic version of the work of the same name, together with the Royal Symphony Orchestra of Seville (ROSS) and at the Teatro de la Maestranza. Season in which the show Home (Uno) with Rocío Molina is consolidated, performing seven nights at the Chaillot National Dance Theater in Paris, a theater to which Rafael Riqueni returned in February 2022 to present his new work Nerja.

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