Keeping the music of yesterday into the today

Heroes Square in Limassol will continue to be filled with more world music tomorrow, when one of the most charismatic women of the contemporary world music scene, Mercedes Peon, will perform as part of the 13th Cyprus Rialto World Music Festival.

Peon will introduce us to the music melody Galicia – a minority language spoken in the West of Spain. With ancient rhythmic motifs and a polyrhythmic style, her compositions create a special atmosphere full of energy, complete with an electro-acoustic complexion.

Her fascination with music started when she was 13-years-old and heard women singing on the Costa da Morte. The playing of the tambourine and the singing of the ribeirana caught her attention and this catapulted into collecting the songs, dances, stories and experiences of her village’s people. She has lectured on Galician folk music throughout the world and has received numerous awards for her teaching and her dedication to preserving the Galician tradition.

Speaking about her musical research, Peon said “ever since I was fortunate enough to fall in love with the songs of the people of Imense (a small town) I have spent years searching for those tunes that only the eldest among us can still remember because much as we may regret it over these last generations, the oral transmission chain has been broken both here and in most of the world.”

After expanding the tradition for more than 25 years, in 2000 she recorded her first album called Isuee. She expressed herself free of clichees and expanded internationally without support from the media. In her later works, Ajrú (2004), Sihá (2007) and Sós (2008), her compositions led her to a particular atmosphere bordering the electroacoustic, marking her own distinctive sign inside and outside our borders. Her latest work, Deixaas, is the result of an intense research on the possibilities of tradition and sound art, in which she stands out as an international reference.

Peon’s musical activates also include running a record label called Discotrompo that promotes Galician traditional and folk music. She also organises several festivals, including the traditional music festival for the Federation of European Cultural Associations and another called Galicia Terra Unica.

Mercedes Peon
Live performance by the singer. July 19. Heroes Square, Limassol. 9pm. Free. Tel: 77-777745

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.