Last Thursday, ABC Córdoba presented the Gran Capitán Award to the flamenco guitarist raised and resident in Córdoba, Vicente Amigo. The prize, created by the Córdoba edition of the prestigious newspaper, benefits from the support of Córdoba City Hall and Caixabank and aims to reward Córdoba who have become major national or international references. Vicente Amigo is considered by the public and specialists as a virtuoso of flamenco art and one of the best “players” of his generation. The event took place at the Royal Circle of Friendship Vicente Amigo (Guadalcanal, Seville, 1967) arrived in our city at the age of five and made it his own. His words of gratitude for the award and about the journey of his life and work emerged from an interview carried out on stage by the directors of ABC Córdoba and Seville, respectively Francisco J. Poyato and Alberto García Reyes. He explains the influence of Córdoba on him and the way he perceives our city. Luis Miranda was right in his later column in our newspaper when he highlighted these words of Amigo: “Speech is time and silence is eternity, and Córdoba is very silent. Silence is also music. It speaks so much and is as painful and strong as any passage. Cordoba has very calm waters. » Great Captain. Vicente Amigo thus aligned himself with the historical definitions of our soul: “Romana y mora. Quiet Cordoba”, by Manuel Machado; “Cordoba, far and alone” by Lorca; the “Oh, Córdoba silent, silent, asleep in the murmur of the current!” by Julio Aumente; or the lament of Pablo García Baena: “The Córdoba of silence, sparse and severe, has disappeared to become the noisiest in Andalusia, according to statistics. This current hubbub would be unthinkable in my time, when time sounded to the rhythm of the heart and a street was called Silence. The question of whether this beautiful and secular “Cordovan silence” has also become a certain Cordovan laziness and indifference, with the negative aspect that this implies for the growth of society, will remain to be debated Vicente Amigo, studied at the Cervantes College, at the Marists. brothers, and when I approached that evening to congratulate him and tell him that I was also one of his former students, I was happy to hear how he remembered his years there and cited the brother Juan Antonio, “who took away my fear”. to mathematics. Let this remain an anecdote. And to close this column, the notes that Vicente Amigo has in mind, which he sometimes writes on his cell phone, before transferring them to his songs and which he shared with everyone that day: “Where will I go? my soul? / After my body dies / will there be freedom / or will memories exist? / Where will my soul go? / Will he have comfort? / Where will all my efforts go? / Where will I kiss the people I love?
