The artist returns to the Riojan theater to offer one of her Thursday Flamencos, which belong to this Northern Flamenco Tour, orchestrated by Antonio Benamargo.
Hope Fernandez presents its repertoire flamenco before an audience that knows what it's there for: to see an artist brimming with rhythm and possessing one of the most powerful voices on the current scene.
She enjoys a long and successful career, and has been nominated for the Latin Grammy, has shared the stage and collaborated with a wide range of musical styles: from La Fura del Baus, to Kiko Venom, Enrique Morente, Tomatitoor as can be seen very recently with the Sevillian group Caliphate 3x4, bringing the sounds of flamenco deliciously combined with cumbia.
Not only with musical artists. Esperanza has been able to read the sounds and rhythms that the poems of Jose Saramago to attribute flamenco music to him, with his project My voice in your word, released in 2013.
During the performance she was accompanied by the guitarist Cordoba Shortwhich he executed with a beautiful touch, rich in suggestions and very flamencoThe singer opened her performance with peteneras. She continued with soleá and caña, well accompanied by the rhythmic accompaniment of Daniel Bonilla y Miguel Fernández, his son.
"Esperanza Fernández embodies a legacy that ranges from the bulería of Lebrija to the tradition of Antonio Mairena, one of her mentors. However, she also draws inspiration from voices such as La Niña de los Peines, Chacón, La Perla de Cádiz, and Chocolate."
Esperanza masters the long verses, the whispers, the laments, and the cries, without ever overusing any of them. Her fandangos from Granada reminded us of her admired [artist/musician]. Enrique Morentewith that A night watchman was falling asleep…
The artist integrates a legacy that ranges from the bulería of Lebrija to the tradition of Antonio Mairena, who is one of his teachers. However, he draws inspiration from voices like La Niña de los Peines, Chacón, La Perla de Cádiz, Chocolate.
Possessing great sensitivity, as she demonstrated on stage, she is one of those artists who values, cherishes, and appreciates the warmth and enthusiasm of the audience. She capped off her performance with a bulerías, barefoot and without a microphone, in the upper part of the orchestra pit, with the lights on, just like the fans from Logroño who were there.
That oft-repeated Chinese proverb tells us: «The flapping of a butterfly's wings can be felt on the other side of the world»And when Esperanza sings, it's sure to cause an earthquake in India, where the gypsies supposedly originated some two thousand years ago, in that city of Chandigarh, which hosted the first in 1976 International Gypsy Festival. There, the singer, still a minor, performed some gypsy litanies, typical of years of suffering and nomadic movement of those people. «lost children of India», as the Prime Minister uttered Indira GandhiThat union marked the life of the Gypsy singer; that emotion she carries in her blood is what pierces us every time she steps onto a stage and gives us a gift. cante by seguiriyas.
These afternoons connect us with what we are unable to see in our suffocating routine, a moment when our gaze is reawakened and yearns for what it lacks, what is absent, what is not. In these moments, that daily restlessness surfaces, alive and roaring, but the canteArt, artistic expression, reminds us of the condition of possibility. That power, that breath of life, produced a latent feeling in the souls of those present.
We end with this poem by Saramago that sounds and comes so flamenco, as Esperanza saw:
I return to you, sea, to the strong taste.
From the salt that the wind brings to my mouth,
To your clarity, to this luck
That I was given the ability to forget death
Even knowing that life is short.
Credits
recital of cante by Esperanza Fernández
XXX Northern Flamenco Tour, Thursday Flamencos
Bretón Theatre, Logroño
February 26th 2026
Capacity: almost full
Cante: Hope Fernandez
Guitar: Chaparro de Córdoba
PalmasMiguel Fernández and Daniel Bonilla
