If life were only justified as an aesthetic phenomenon, Leonor Leal would be considered a particularly successful embodiment of this way of looking at existence. Born in Jerez de la Frontera, Andalusia, in 1980, the dynamic elegance of the dancer reveals a proud beauty that skilfully blends traditional flamenco with contemporary elements. In her program “Luna que se quiebra” (German: the moon that breaks), which she will be showing on April 8th in Ottobrunn’s Wolf-Ferrari-Haus, the dancer sets out in search of the essence of flamenco – what so means a lot like: in search of maximum presence and expressiveness. “Tener duenede” – having (and achieving) that certain something, developing a flow in the improvised, sometimes spontaneous, electrifying play of movements.
“It will be a very special evening,” says Johannes Tonio Kreusch, who organizes the Ottobrunn concerts with his brother Cornelius Claudio Kreusch. This evening, which Leal will be accompanied by guitarist Alfredo Lagos and flamenco singer Tomás de Perrate, is part of the fourth flamenco festival in the community and at the same time the start of the year for the concert series after a break of around half a year. The second evening is inspired by a legend of the flamenco guitar “In the spirit of Paco de Lucía” is the motto when, on Saturday 9 April, two of the most important flamenco guitarists of the younger generation take the stage at the Wolf Ferrari House show their skills. In a double concert, Amir John Haddad and Alfredo Lagos will show how the flamenco guitar has developed since Paco de Lucía (died 2014). “I know and appreciate them,” says Johannes Kreusch, who is himself an internationally renowned concert guitarist. Amir John Haddad, known as “El Amir”, likes to cross stylistic boundaries in an unconventional way and has recorded works with the German Hollywood composer Hans Zimmer, among others. Alfredo Lagos is the more classical flamenco artist of the two and has not least worked with the Spanish director Carlos Sauro, known for his dance films “Carmen”, “Tango”, “Iberia”).
The small flamenco festival in April, which had to be postponed twice, in 2020 and 2021, due to the corona pandemic, opens this year’s Ottobrunn concert season. For the first time in a long time there will also be the workshops that are characteristic of the series (dance with Leonor Leal and guitar with Alfredo Lagos) and the meet-the-artist talks after the concerts. “It’s always a matter close to our hearts that you can learn something from such artists and get to know them better yourself,” says Johannes Tonio Kreusch.
In May the guitar festival follows and the artists from the Berklee College of Music perform
He and his brother Cornelius Claudio Kreusch – both were awarded the SZ Tassilo Prize, among other things – are happy that things are really getting going again after much of the pandemic has fallen victim in recent years. The program is all the more dense in the coming months: in May there will be the 7th Festival of the Guitar (6th to 8th May) and at the end of May protagonists from the famous jazz university Berklee College of Music will come to Ottobrunn again. In addition, the 7th Piano Festival will take place on July 8th and 9th, with Bojan Z and David Gazarov among others, and the fifth Jazz Festival in August. As Nietzsche said, who also coined the sentence quoted at the beginning: Without music, life would be a mistake.
Tickets are available from, among others https://wfh-ottobrunn.de respectively Reservix or phone 089/60808302, more information about www.ottobrunner-konzerte.com.