Event

JFFA presents Carlos Núñez

Carlos Núñez is the poster boy of Galician music, but it's a title he has earned by both talent and hard work. With chops like Hendrix on the local bagpipes (called gaita), but a penchant for researching the tradition and its origins, he has become one of Spain's most recognizable musicians and a major force behind the reconstruction of the Galician musical tradition.

Núñez is one of Galicia's most revered artists, undisputed as the tradition's greatest piper. He is also enormously popular across the rest of Spain and throughout Europe and Latin America. He had a Number One hit and his records regularly attain gold and platinum status in Spain, while worldwide he has sold over a million albums. He is already known in Irish music thanks to his early "adoption" by The Chieftains (so close was his musical and personal connection he was dubbed "The Seventh Chieftain"). He's the undisputed master of Galicia's signature musical instrument, the gaita, or Galician bagpipes.

"What the flamenco guitar is to the south, the gaita is to the north," he explains. "The pipes have been here for over a thousand years. They are the oldest in the world. Everyone knows Scottish bagpipes and Irish uillean pipes, but they are the descendants of the Galician pipes." The gaita is musically more flexible than its Irish and Scottish relations, and in the hands of Núñez who also plays pennywhistle, ocarina, Jew's harp, tin whistle and flute an exciting and funky 21st century instrument.

"People say I play the pipes like the electric guitar!" he says.
Tickets are also available at Port Book and News in Port Angeles and Joyful Noise Music Center in Sequim