DUA DE PEL (SPAIN)
Dúa de Pel is a variable geometry ensemble that erases the border between past and present, between the local and the universal. Their compositions are notably influenced by the folklore of the Iberian Peninsula, but they naturally combine multiple styles from different eras and cultures. Dúa de Pel immerses itself in tradition to reinvent it. The group was born in Madrid in 2014, when the composer Sonia Megías and the writer Eva Guillamón decided to unite their respective knowledge and their long artistic career to create music full of poetry. Since then, the group has developed an extensive career at a national and international level, in such renowned auditoriums as The Juilliard School of Music in New York, the British Museum in London, the Culture Square Theater in Shanghai (China), the Yue Opera Town in Shengzhou (China), the Instituto Cervantes in Tokyo (Japan) or the Cultural Centers of Spain in several Latin American countries (AECID). Her two albums to date have been presented in two of the most relevant venues on the Spanish music scene: Dúa de Pel (2018) at the Teatro Real and Madera de pájaro (2021) at the Auditorio Nacional. In Dúa de Pel, all the lyrics and poems are the creation of Eva Guillamón, and all the music and arrangements are the creation of Sonia Megías. Dúa de Pel's work connects with a common essence through the depth of the word and the harmony of music, beyond languages or eras. Defining her style is a never-ending task, as would be deciding which country a cloud or a star belongs to. WHY IS DÚA DE PEL TRADITIONAL MUSIC? The technique of voice emission, the investigation and deconstruction of folk rhythms, the use of traditional instruments such as the bandurrias, the mortar, the square tambourine from Peñaparda, the castanets, the Brazilian spoons, the castanets from India, the tambourine, the santur, the krakebs... make Dúa de Pel's work a journey from the music of the roots to a language of its own: tradition in movement. WHY IS DÚA DE PEL CONTEMPORARY MUSIC? In Dúa de Pel's music we find neomodalism, metric games in the purest style of Stravinsky, Bartók, Reich or Meredith Monk, displacements of accents, expanded techniques at the vocal and instrumental level, sound objects such as bicycle bells, fans or kitchen utensils. WHY IS DÚA DE PEL A SONGWRITER? In Dúa de Pel the word becomes music. They sing like fundamental antidote to the pain of life and death, and through their voices they raise awareness and promote social change, on a personal and political level. WHY IS DÚA DE PEL POETRY? In her creations, Dúa de Pel speaks of the relationship between the inside and the outside, the personal and the political, consciousness and the invisible, and she does so through classical metrics, such as redondillas, décimas, hendecasyllabic verses, alexandrines or a free contemporaneity that experiments with language, displacing the boundary between prose and poetry, between the intimate and the social. WHY IS DÚA DE PEL FEMINISM? Through her artistic work, Dúa de Pel puts the emancipatory process of women at the center as key agents in the defense and protection of life. Because one of the functions of art is to tell the part of History that has not been seen, or that continues to go unnoticed. To learn more about Dúa de Pel: www.duadepel.com YouTube Spotify
