Chicuelo & Marco Mezquida
Biography Chicuelo & Marco Mezquida
Juan Gómez, Chicuelo
He accompanied singers such as Enrique Morente, Miguel Poveda, Duquende, Mayte Martín, Rancapino, Chano Lobato, José Mercé, El Cigala, Potito, Carmen Linares. He shared stage with musicians such as Chano Domínguez, Carles Benavent, Jorge Pardo, Jordi Bonell and collaborated with the pianist Maria Joâo Pires.
As a soloist, he released two albums, Cómplices (Harmonia Mundi, 2000) and Diapasión (Flamenco Records, 2007), with which he endorses his artistic contribution to the flamenco guitar. Chicuelo adds a long list of collaborations, among which the production of recordings by Ginesa Ortega, Miguel Poveda, Duquende and Salao stand out.
In 2016 Chicuelo premiered his new project with Marco Mezquida and Paco de Mode in collaboration with the Fira Mediterrània de Manresa. Subsequently, this new proposal materializes in the album Conexión (Discmedi/Taller de Músics, 2017), with worldwide recognition. Three years later, he publishes a new work with Marco Mezquida, No hay dos sin tres (Self-published, 2019), together with Paco de Mode.
On the other hand, Chicuelo is the musical director of Shoji Kojima’s Japanese dance company since 1998 and Somorrostro Danza Flamenca, produced by Taller de Músics. He has also participated in the film industry, composing part of the music for Orson Welles’ last film, Don Quixote (1992), and for Pablo Berger’s Snow White (2012). The bulería No te puedo encontrar, the central theme of the film Snow White, won the Goya Award 2013 for best original song. The song is a creation by Chicuelo with lyrics by the film’s director, Pablo Berger.
In 2022, he launches the project Caminos, accompanied by three outstanding artists from different genres: Karen Lugo on dance, Martín Meléndez on cello and David Gómez on drums.
Marco Mezquida
Born in Menorca in 1987, the versatile pianist, improviser and composer MARCO MEZQUIDA is the embodiment of musical passion and is considered one of the most lively figures on the Spanish jazz scene. Terms like "wunderkind", "piano magician", "magnetic", are often used to describe the impressive range of his work.Thus, the pianist MARCO MEZQUIDA, who has won several awards, has already enchanted the world's great jazz festivals and important concert halls such as the Cologne Philharmonic, the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona or the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Kulturarena Jena and many more.
He presents himself and his music on stage full of musical joy, peppered with musical experiments, such as the inclusion of the sound of directly struck piano strings, if he is not immediately disappearing into the resonance body of his grand piano, where he uses an infinite number of technical and aesthetic means such as bells, tambourine or drum to elicit unfamiliar sounds from the prepared strings of the instrument in a unique way.
As a multiplier of musical presences, his praised solo piano concerts can be understood as a one-man orchestra. With his spectacular mixture of melodious sounds, vitality, tangos, flamencos and buleras, Marco Mezquida succeeds in making every moment as intense and fresh as possible. Folklore gives his music a special touch of colour, but the heartbeat of each piece is determined by modern jazz with its artistic arcs of tension. He only uses minimal traditional influences, but invents his music himself.
The great composer and top flamenco musician works with extraordinary and unique methods in the instrumentation of his pieces. As an explorer of sounds and creator of atmospheres, he presents in various projects and in cooperation with international flamenco and jazz greats an incomparably versatile spectrum of expression beyond all common genre boundaries.
