LIVE@365 Season Concludes With Manuel Agujetas Tonight, 5/22

Tonight, May 22, Manuel Agujetas makes his first New York appearance since 1976, performing the concluding concert in the new Live@365 world music series. 

As with all of the concerts comprising the Isabel Soffer-curated Live@365, the concert will take place at 7:00 P.M. in the remarkably intimate Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall of The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (365 Fifth Avenue).  Tickets are $25 ($15 for students) and can be purchased by visiting www.smarttix.com or calling 212.868.4444.

In this long-awaited New York show, Agujetas will be joined by the celebrated young Gypsy guitarist Manuel Valencia of Jerez de la Frontera, a student of maestro Manuel Morao, protegé of Gerardo Núñez and the nephew of Terremoto, from whom he learned to accompany the cante.

On the recently released, V.O.R.S Jerez Al Cante (Karonte, March 2012), Agujetas performs alongside the likes of "El Torta," Fernando de la Morena, Manuel Moneo, Luis el Zambo, Diego del Morao, Capullo de Jerez, Manuel Parrila and others. This album marks the first time that all of these great Gypsy singers of the older generation in Jerez have united as a group. V.O.R.S., which stands for Very Old Rare Sherry, denotes vintages over thirty years old, in limited production, and of extraordinary quality. 

Born Manuel de los Santos Pastor in Cadiz in 1936, Agujetas has long been an outstanding, controversial singer, anarchic and unpredictable. He is also one of the most important figures in the history of flamenco. From a renowned musical family, Agujetas worked as a blacksmith with his father until 1970, when he made his first recording.  He has achieved international recognition for singing the stunningly intense form of flamenco, cante jondo (deep song), which includes flamenco’s purest, ancient styLes Martinetes and siguiriyas. In 1977, he was awarded the Premio Nacional del Cante (National Award for Flamenco Singing) by the Cátedra de Flamencología in Jerez. He also appears in Carlos Saura’s film Flamenco and in Dominique Abel’s documentary Agujetas, Cantaor.

About Live@365

Live@365 is a series of world music concerts, curated by Isabel Soffer, in the Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall, a remarkably intimate, 180-seat concert theater at 365 Fifth Avenue, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. 

The inaugural season of Live@365 has consisted of six concerts, all on a Tuesday at 7:00 P.M. The series features standout artists and exclusive projects that best suit Elebash Hall’s unique size, ambience and acoustics. The series has presented a wide range of music, both traditional and contemporary, from Europe, Africa, Australasia and the Middle East. For most of the artists in the lineup, Live@365 has represented either a U.S. debut or the premiere of a new project.

Live@365 is the first series Soffer has produced and curated with her own company Live Sounds (livesounds.org) after leaving World Music Institute in February 2011 following 25 years with the organization. Considered one of New York City’s foremost curators and producers of international music through her work at WMI and as co-founder and co-producer of the annual event globalFEST, she has helped audiences to discover new artists and to experience, in some of the city’s most prestigious performance venues, established and emerging artists from around the world.  For more information, go to www.liveat365.org.