Laura De Los Ángeles is a creative and talented Flamenco pianist who was born in Seville, Spain in 1986 and grew up in a heavily musical environment, thus evidently contributing towards her development as an expert Flamenco musician, artist and performer. This is because she grew up around well-known, talented musicians such as Manolo Soler, Jesús Bola and Quique Paredes. De Los Ángeles is one of the most fascinating and endearing Flamenco artists working in Andalusia, Spain – and even in the world – today.
In terms of her educational background, and particularly in that of music, De Los Ángeles began her music training at the prestigious Elementary Conservatoire of Triana at the young age of eleven. Succeeding here quickly, she then began her medium-level training with the Cristobal de Morales Professional Conservatoire, thus demonstrating her early talents. Moreover, she was then able to skip four grades at the young and precocious age of seventeen, and subsequently begin an academic university degree, specialising in Flamenco music, in Córdoba, Andalucía. During her time at college she participated in a whole diverse raft of professional music projects, although she seemed to particularly focus on the instruments of both percussion and piano, as this seemed to be the music with which she had the greatest affinity, perhaps because of their similarity to Flamenco in terms of their rhythms. All in all, De Los Ángeles enjoyed an extraordinarily successful academic career as a young woman.
De Los Ángeles’ first album, entitled ‘El Callejón del Agua’ (which can roughly be translated into English as: ‘The Passage of Water’, this perhaps referring to the mesmerising sounds of the music that she would create and produce herself) was released in 2007, when De Los Ángeles was a twenty-one years old. Well-known and well-renowned singer-songwriter Nando Juglar served as Executive Producer on this album, and the music included on it became highly successful both domestically and internationally. Still in her third year at university at this stage, De Los Ángeles then decided to drop out and abandon her academic speciality in Flamenco music, to dedicate her life to her professional career as a composer and performer of Flamenco piano. However, her theoretical studies served her in excellent stead for pursuing a career in performance, and this is something that she is somewhat interested in returning to in the future. It may be that one day De Los Ángeles returns to academic life, although perhaps as a professor or a university tutor herself.
In addition, De Los Ángeles later published further record material in March 2008, under the careful direction of long-time collaborator and friend Jesús Bola. Album ‘El Callejón del Agua’ received a 2008 nomination for the 12th edition of the music awards for Best Flamenco Album. Furthermore, De Los Ángeles received the opportunity to be a finalist in the 2008 ‘Flamenco Hoy (today) Awards’ in the category of ‘Best Instrumental Album’.
Moreover, following on from the success of her debut album ‘El Callejón del Agua’, De Los Ángeles went on to produce her own self-titled performance show, named ‘El Callejón de Laura’ at a variety of theatres, including the Teatro Lara in Madrid, the Teatro Español, the Teatro Madrid and the Teatro Federico García Lorca sponsored by Paco Ortega, and at a diverse range of other theatres and venues in and around Spain. There were also productions that took place in France, Colombia (sponsored by Nando Juglar), and Norway and Sweden in 2010 in a production created by Lars Josephsen alongside the accompaniment of blues guitarist Tony Remy. There was then a 2011 tour to Italy, ‘Un piano flamenco y palomas’ (in other words ‘A Flamenco piano and doves’), formed by Samantha H Agastin, which was hugely successful. Moreover, there was an additional August 2012 tour to Costa Rica, produced by Laura Jiménez and her record label Arte CR Producciones. This tour was received extremely well, with De Los Ángeles garnering widespread critical acclaim, thus contributing to her success as an outstanding Flamenco artist.
Many extremely well-renowned Flamenco performers and musicians have great respect for De Los Ángeles as a fellow Flamenco artist and she has collaborated with many of them, for example she has previously worked with singers Calixto Sánchez, Nano De Jerez, El Polaco, Laura Vital and Juan Valderrama, and guitarists such as Manolo Franco, Antonio Carrión, Eduardo Rebollar and Manolito Herrera. De Los Ángeles also performed in the famous Biennale de Flamenco, during its 16th edition in 2010. This demonstrates that De Los Ángeles has rooted herself as one of the best and most-respected flamenco piano musicians in Spain, and perhaps in the world on a global level too. She has also accompanied other Flamenco artists on several tours, including Colombian artist Juanes (July 2011).
De Los Ángeles second and much-awaited album, ‘Mi Nueva Esperanza’ (‘My New Hope’) was released in the spring of 2013. Themes that inspired this album included her then-recent new motherhood, and the longing for a new world where human rights, dreams and art prevail – thus explaining the album’s title. Once again, this album was recorded at Bola Studios, under the musical direction of Jesús Bola once more.
De Los Ángeles has a great number of exciting projects lined up for the next couple of months and even years, and she is excited to take her outstanding talents and passion for Flamenco music to even further levels. It is extremely fascinating to think where the career of De Los Ángeles will take her next – and having supported her since the beginning, it feels very satisfying and rewarding to have followed her to this extent.
