Masterclass by Amancio Prada

The musical work of Amancio Prada (Dehesas, León, 1949) as a composer and performer has always had a literary basis which, throughout his discography, has shaped an anthological journey through the poetry of the Iberian Peninsula, from the Cantigas of the early Galician-Portuguese troubadours (12th and 13th centuries), through the Romancero, Juan del Enzina, Jorge Manrique, San Juan de la Cruz, and Rosalía de Castro, to contemporary authors such as Federico García Lorca, Juan Ramón Jiménez, María Zambrano, Álvaro Cunqueiro, Carmen Martín Gaite, Agustín García Calvo, Luis López Álvarez, Antonio Pereira, and Juan Carlos Mestre.

Among other awards, he has received the Castelao Medal of Galicia (1995), the Castilla y León Arts Award (2005), the Grand Prix du Répertoire Sacem (2008), the Tenco Award (2010), and the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts (2011).

October 18 / 7:30 p.m.

Amancio Prada arrived in Paris in 1970 to study at the Sorbonne. His neighbor and classmate, tired of hearing him sing at night, knocked on his door one day and gave him a copy of "The Life and Works of Saint John of the Cross." "Read and be quiet," he said. Prada, after leafing through it and reaching the pages of "Spiritual Canticle," was fascinated. In his solitude, and while reading the poetry collection, he could hear the music sung by Saint John of the Cross and fell in love with the melodies that emerged from his soul.

After more than forty years touring with "Cántico Espiritual de San Juan de la Cruz" (Spiritual Canticle of Saint John of the Cross), Prada conveys the collection of poems with a special emotionality in which her voice stands out. According to musicologist Inés Mogollón, this is his greatest asset: "with a beautiful tone and perfect diction, a voice that combines a deeply expressive and very personal form of lyrical recitation, a mastery of singing that makes the tremor of love, or if you prefer, mysticism, even more disturbing."