Benito Cabrera, Domingo Rodríguez 'El Colorao', Germán López, Yone Rodríguez and Althay Páez will be the protagonists
The musical show Timples@2021 will arrive at five new venues during the month of December, following its premiere in June of this year at the Pérez Galdós Theatre. This production features five of the best timple players from the Canary Islands: Benito Cabrera , Domingo Rodríguez 'El Colorao', Germán López, Yone Rodríguez, and Althay Páez , who share the stage with a band of nearly 20 musicians.
The Las Tirajanas Auditorium of ExpoMeloneras will mark the start of this new journey of Timples@2021 on December 10, in a concert scheduled by the Department of Culture of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, directed by Elena Espino; a day later it will travel to Lanzarote, where it will be performed at the El Salinero Theater (Arrecife); On December 16, it will land in Fuerteventura, at the Training and Congress Palace (Puerto del Rosario); On the 19th of the same month, a very special concert will arrive at the Teatro Circo de Marte (Santa Cruz de La Palma), which will have a special dedication to all those affected by the Cumbre Vieja volcano; and on the 26th, to the Tenerife Auditorium. Tickets can be purchased at each of the portals of each venue.
Timples@2021 also boasts a distinguished production team, including Miguel Ramírez (artistic and production director) and José Brito (musical and artistic director), who are leading this musical project that aims to continue the legacy of Timples@2000 , which premiered on December 28, 1999, at the Alfredo Kraus Auditorium. That first concert brought together three of the most important musicians in the history of our popular music: Benito Cabrera, Domingo Rodríguez 'El Colorao', and José Antonio Ramos. With a renewed cast and new arrangers, Timples@2021 incorporates the unique perspective of three timple players who witnessed that first performance from the audience at just 14 years old: Germán López, Althay Páez, and Yone Rodríguez.
Two decades later, Timples@2021 updates the evolution of the timple with five of the instrument's finest performers, through 15 tracks that will demonstrate the evolution of the timple's sound over this time. Tradition and contemporary music once again come together in an encounter between the sounds of folk music, jazz, classical music, and improvisation, with the timple as the central instrument, a direct witness to the evolution of our roots in these early years of the new millennium.
The songs, carefully chosen, have been arranged for the occasion by Manuel Bonino, Carlos Vega, Yul Ballesteros and José Brito, respecting the value of popular music with jazzy and contemporary airs.
This show is sponsored by the councils of Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Tenerife and La Palma; municipalities of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, Santa Cruz de La Palma; Ministry of Tourism of the Government of the Canary Islands; Promotion Society of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; Canarian Television; and Canaluz.
BIOGRAPHIES
A timple soloist and folklorist, Benito Cabrera was the first performer to bring the timple into the symphonic realm, giving numerous concerts and making recordings with ensembles such as the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, the Córdoba Symphony Orchestra, and the Galicia Symphony Orchestra. Besides giving recitals throughout the Canary Islands and participating in major festivals like Womad, Atlántica, and Son Latinos, he has performed in major cities across Spain, as well as internationally. He has released nine recordings as a timple soloist, blending styles ranging from folk and classical to pop. His dedication to outreach and education is reflected in the publication of several books on ethnographic research, contributions to various encyclopedias on Canarian culture, and the creation of two timple learning methods (one of them audiovisual). During 2007 he toured the United States and took over the musical direction of the legendary group Los Sabandeños, a task he carried out until 2021. He currently directs the Timple House-Museum in Teguise (Lanzarote) and carries out various projects with several groups.
Domingo Rodríguez , popularly known as El Colorao , was born in 1964 in Vega de Tetir, Fuerteventura, into a humble family of folk musicians. His musical interests led him to Paris in 1985, where he began his classical guitar studies with Blas Sánchez. He later moved to Madrid to study guitar with Jorge Cardoso. In 1990, he settled permanently in the Canary Islands, where he began teaching folklore and guitar courses. Although he had always played the timple (a small, five-stringed instrument), it was in 1992 that he began his career as a performer of this instrument, appearing in most of the theaters and auditoriums of the Canary Islands. He has taken his timple around the world, released three CDs—'El Timple' in 1995, 'Timpliando' in 1999, and 'Aulaga' in 2003—and collaborated on numerous recordings with prominent Canarian artists. He is the first timple player to publish a timple method in solfeistic notation with scales, studies, exercises and simple works.
Germán López was born in Gran Canaria in 1983 and began performing in public at a very young age. In 2006, he released his first solo album, Timplissimo , produced by Jose Antonio Ramos. Since then, he has participated in numerous festivals. In 2011, he recorded Somethin Stupid with Yul Ballesteros . In 2013 and 2014, he toured to promote his fourth CD, De Raíz . He regularly collaborates with groups such as Mestisay, Taburiente, Luis Morera ('Morera y López'), and Domingo El Colorao ('Malpaís'). His participation in the opening concert of WOMEX 2014 was particularly noteworthy. In 2015, he released Don't Worry Be Happy with Yul Ballesteros and participated in the Timples and Other Small Guitars of the World project . His latest album, Canela y Limón , was recorded with the guitarist Antonio Toledo from Cádiz.
At the age of seven, Yone Rodríguez began playing the timple and decided to continue his training with masters such as Néstor García, Domingo Rodríguez, and, above all, his greatest influence, José Antonio Ramos. At eleven, he released his first album, La Otra Orilla (2001). His three subsequent albums— Colores (2009), Vivo (2012), and Semilla (2020)—showcase his evolution and the refinement of a musician who has never stopped growing. He has been a member of the Canary Islands Timple Orchestra and, along with Germán López, Althay Páez, and Beselch Rodríguez, performs in the show Timples y otras pequeñas guitarras del mundo (Timples and Other Small Guitars of the World ).
Born in Fuerteventura, Althay Páez possesses a devilish playing technique. Among his contemporaries, he is recognized as a virtuoso of the Canarian instrument, both for his technical skill and for the emotional depth he brings to his live performances. His playing combines powerful accents rooted in tradition with a contemporary spirit that makes him unique and extraordinary within the Canarian instrumental music scene. He has released an album, Sostiene Pereira , recorded between Lisbon and the Canary Islands with the Portuguese musician Julio Pereira, a pioneer of the Portuguese cavaquinho.
