Tom Metcalfe – flamenco guitar
Allie Herrmann – flamenco dancer

Tom and Allie have been working together since 2017 and will be interpreting many of the main palos (styles) of flamenco, including Solea, Tientos, Alegrias, Farruca, Guajiras, Solea por Bulerias, Tangos, and Seguiriyas. Each has its own unique blend of rhythm, tonality, emotion, and history. The palos are song-forms that are vehicles for improvisation, functioning as the flamenco equivalent of the raga, jazz standard or folk song.

This concert will last approximately 50 minutes.

Tom Metcalfe & Allie Herrmann began working together in 2017, as a flamenco dance and guitar duo. For this project, Tom received the highest ever performance mark (96) on the MA Music (Performance) course at University of Salford. The ensemble now teach and perform across the region. Allie has danced all her life, originally trained in ballet and contemporary. She studied at Art College and re-found dance through flamenco. Allie now teaches flamenco classes in Manchester and Leeds. She loves to share the passion and self-expression of flamenco. Tom is a performer, teacher and songwriter. Primarily a flamenco guitarist, he is also a vastly experienced multi-instrumentalist and has performed in a multitude of projects and ensembles. Tom is passionate about folk songs, world music, improvisation, musical history, and the psychology of performance and creativity. He is now planning a PhD proposal, after developing a new pedagogy for heptatonic scales.

Flamenco is a term used to describe a variety of musical and dance styles from Andalusia in the South of Spain, taking influences from gitano (gypsy), Arabic and Jewish music. In 2010, the United Nations declared flamenco to be one of the “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.” It’s complex rhythmic structure (compas) and distinctive harmony (sometimes called to as Phrygian Dominant tonality) gives flamenco it’s unique flavour. The role of the guitarist is to accompany the singer and dancer, following the harmonic and rhythmic arcs of each, whilst appropriately improvising and responding to their musical and non-verbal cues. The palos (styles) of flamenco serve as traditional vehicles for expressing the human condition. The grief in Seguiriyas, the joy of Alegrias and the solitude in Solea are universal human experiences that we all share. It is the role of the flamenco artist to transmute these emotions to the audience and to improvise within the framework provided by the tradition.