Galicia, the NW corner in the Iberian Peninsula, keeps one of the richest folklores within Spain’s trad music. Over the last century, its innovative artists have tended to trace their cultural connections & roots in both directions, to neighbouring Portugal to the south, but also to the eastern and northern regions & countries of Celtic musical tradition. In this case we have in our hands a CD from TOR, a band of veteran & recognized musicians such as the brothers Félix Castro (concertina, diatonic accordion, gaita bagpipes) and Castor Castro (flutes, bouzouki, harmonium), Álvaro Iglesias (double bass), and Xosé Liz (bouzouki, bouzouki-guitar, mandolin). We have known of their indisputable musical mastery for decades, forming part of numerous projects such as: with the Asturian band Felpeyu, and with the musicians Pancho Álvarez, Begoña Riboo, Anxo Lorenzo and others. In fact, Pancho Álvarez is one of the featured artists, playing the medieval eight-shaped fiddle & violin on the tune 'Repimpín' on this album. The CD cover presents the name TOR followed by the label 'Folk Celtico da Galiza', a first indication of their approach to Galician popular music, partly influenced by Irish or Scottish music, and not only the more typical local sounds.
The Castro brothers are graduates in Law (Salamanca University), lawyers, musicians and researchers in traditional music and Galician ethnography. Félix Castro also has a degree in Anthropology (UNED). They were founders together with Igor Medio and Ruma Barbero of the Asturian folk group Felpeyu in 1991, also members of the Gomes Mouro Traditional Music Classroom in Ourense, the traditional quintet Os Lubicáns, and Sólidos Galicianos, regular collaborators in Pancho Alvarez's musical projects. They investigated the wooden flute and the diatonic accordion in Galicia as well as the bagpipes close fingering, an ancient way of playing, and the recovery of the memory and repertoire of the bagpipers and musicians from Ourense, mainly Faustino Santalices. They have collaborated on twenty national and international albums and compilations. TOR represents for them the return to their musical roots in folk and live concerts, after two decades dedicated mainly to musical research.
Xosé Liz is a musician of recognized national and international prestige in the field of Galician folk and Celtic Music. More than thirty record productions with the best Galician artists (Cristina Pato, Susana Seivane, Rodrigo Romaní, Anxo Pintos, Anxo Lorenzo, Begoña Riobo...) and his usual presence on the best stages of this music (Interceltic Festival of L'orient, Celtic Connections, Piping Live, Vall D'aOsta, Scottish Weekend…) endorse the career of this multi-instrumentalist from Vigo. He combines his work as a professional musician, producer, arranger and composer; with his work as teacher of flute and plucked strings at the prestigious school of folk and traditional music E-Trad from Vigo city since 2009. He recently released his first solo album «El Cantar de los flautares» as a multi-instrumentalist.
Álvaro Iglesias, trained in classical music, he develops his career in traditional Galician music. Among his teachers are the Lithuanian teacher Iminas Kucinskas, Cris Gándara, Camilo Freire and Carlos Méndez (teacher at the School of Advanced Musical Studies of Galicia and member of the Royal Philharmonic of Galicia). He was member of bands such as Tres, Carlos Núñez, Pancho Alvarez, Faltriqueira, and the bagpiper Anxo Lorenzo, participating with all of them throughout his more than twenty years of career in numerous festivals of the highest international level, such as the Cambrigde Folk Festival, Rock in Rio, Womad, Ortigueira Celtic World Festival, Celtic Connections, Lorient Interceltic Festival, William Kennedy Piping Festival, Celtica, Gooikoorts, etc. Among his most outstanding works, there are recordings, compositions or collaborations in more than twenty albums and documentaries for TVG or Discovery Channel. He also made the BSO for the films of the production company Zinemusik, «Luarada» (2020) and "Devoured at night" (2020). Currently, he combines being part of and collaborating with bands such as Arán, Entre trastes, Ardentía, Son de Seu, or Rodrigo Romaní, among others, with being a producer, composer, arranger and freelancer in studio recordings or live collaborations with different artists and bands of the national and international music scene. He has released two solo CDS: «Vagalume» (Zouma Records, 2021) and «Alma» (Zouma Records, 2018), they are the first albums in the history of Celtic music in which the solo instrument is a double bass, playing, along with acoustic guitar or bouzouki, melodies and own compositions always based on traditional Galician music.
The TOR CD, dated in 2020, contains a set of eleven songs, the last two of them recorded live. The band demonstrates not just the impeccable talent of these musicians that we have enjoyed for decades, but mostly their elegant taste when performing adapted traditional tunes such as the muiñeira jig ‘Sobrado’, or their creative version of the pasodoble ‘Carolina’. It is evident that TOR's reworking of Galician popular music moves its traditional sounds some miles away from the typical style, sometimes closer to the fields of Irish Celtic bands (Flook could be a reference point), but also resembling some of the mythical bands from Galicia’s neighbour region at the east, Asturias, who have also explored the connections with the Scottish folk music.
Photo Credits:
(1)-(2) TOR
(unknown/website).
