Artist Bio:
The bagpipe is ubiquitous throughout Europe, and one of the most fascinating piping traditions has developed in Galicia on the northwest coast of Spain, where the local version of the instrument is called the gaita. Carlos Núñez, a platinum-selling artist whom Billboard once dubbed "the Jimi Hendrix of the bagpipes," is the instrument's acknowledged master.
Because of the region's Celtic heritage, Galician music (and that of neighboring Asturias) developed independently of other Spanish styles. One major reason is that until fairly recently the province was isolated by its mountainous terrain so its culture had more in common with that of nearby Portugal. The medieval echoes in Galician tunes can be traced to centuries of song-swapping along a pilgrimage route that terminates in the city of Santiago de Compostela while a sinuous Arabic strain came from the conquered Moorish kingdom of Granada. Meanwhile, the Celtic link was probably reinforced by Galician seafarers, for whom it was easier to visit Ireland, Cornwall or Brittany than to travel overland to Madrid. In any case, Galician music is remarkably compatible with Celtic styles: the muiñeira is roughly equivalent to a jig while alalás resemble slow airs.
Carlos Núñez was born in 1971 in the coastal town of Vigo and as a child he fell—literally—in love with the gaita: The first time he heard one, he passed out cold. Núñez was already a notable performer by his early teens, when he was invited to play with the Lorient Festival Orchestra in Brittany. While he was there, he attempted to play the Breton pipes and less successfully, the bombarde, a notoriously skittish double reed. Núñez soon came to the attention of Paddy Moloney, bandleader of the Chieftains and this led to an ongoing collaboration; in fact he has sometimes been referred to as "the Seventh Chieftain." He was the inspiration for and sat in on the Chieftain's lively, Grammy-winning 1996 foray into Galician music, Santiago, which also featured Linda Ronstadt and Los Lobos. The Chieftains returned the favor by sitting in on Núñez' first solo record, 1997's Brotherhood of Stars, along with Triona and Michael O'Domhnaill (Ireland), American guitarist Ry Cooder, Basque accordionist Kepa Junkera and Portuguese fado star Dulce Pontes.
Nunez's 2000 sophomore album, Os Amores Libres, is even more geographically far-flung, featuring personalities from Ireland, Brittany, Israel, Spain, Morocco and Romania. Núñez is relaxed and sanguine about cross-cultural experiments noting that Galician music is itself a fusion not unlike a cathedral, where gothic, baroque and neoclassical architecture may be superimposed over many generations. He has often spoken of a growing interest in various North African styles, Cuban sounds, Spanish flamenco and especially South American music from Argentina and Venezuela, where millions of Galician immigrants and their descendants now live. But 2003's Un Galicien en Bretagne is devoted to Breton traditions while 2000's Cinema do Mar is a tribute to classical and movie soundtrack composers and features gaita-led excerpts from Rodrigo's "Concerto de Aranjuez," Ravel's "Bolero" and a Bach Prelude along with works by Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone and Hans Zimmer. —Christina Roden
