FISL NEWSLETTER JANUARY 1969 Issue 1 Volume 2
Editor…………………………..Morre Zatania
Special columns… Brook Zern, Anita Volland, Estela Zatania, Richard Brune
Graphic Director………..Francis Walker
MAGAZINE
Looking back on the past year’s publication, we feel that we have made a good beginning in providing a service which can help the flamenco, professional, non-professional or beginner.
Most of you are familiar with the Flamenco Information Service Library (FISL). The library is a non-profit organization which promotes the art of flamenco in North America.
The Library is concerned with all aspects of flamenco expression, dancing, singing and guitar.
"The FISL paints a vibrant portrait of New York's interest in the flamenco in the sixties with a festival of cante including when Carmen Amaya and her company regularly filled the Village Gate, while Sabicas, alone with his guitar, packed the city's great theaters and other venues."
The Library sponsors a Cante Festival annually which, it is hoped, encourages interest and participation in flamenco singing in conjunction with the guitar and dancing.
<scan>The Library has worked together with a group in California in preparing a directory of flamenco artists which went to press in February ’68. Flamencos who wish to be listed in the next publishing should direct their inquiries to the Directory Committee, c/o F.I.S.L. (See form on last page of this issue).</scan>
The most recent contribution of the Library is its monthly newsletter. The letter consists of a number of columns: an Editorial, Letters to the Editor, Rhythm of the Month, The Flamenco Guitar, Biography of the Month, New Books and Records, Advertisements and Current Events. The latter two we hope to expand and make more complete as these are the columns we feel to be most important both for the performing artist and the aficionado.
The editorials have dealt with such subjects as the evolution of flamenco, the cante and Americans, the Festival of Cante Flamenco, the enemies of flamenco, and the state of flamenco in the midwest.
Letters to the editor have ranged from views strongly contrary to those of the editor, to an appeal for standardization in the writing of cifra (a system of annotation for guitar). The exchange of ideas on cifra has led to a system we call the Metcalf method, Clark Metcalf being its main innovator and inspiration, not yet fully developed.
