Concurso de Cante Jondo

El Concurso del Cante Jondo (Contest of the Deep Song) was a well-known celebration of the art of flamenco, its music, song, and dance, held in Granada, on Corpus Christi, the 13th and 14 June 1922. Its original organizer was composer Manuel de Falla, with early and strong support from poet Federico García Lorca.

The Spanish classical composer Manuel de Falla (1876–1946), an Andalusian, was the principal organizer of the Concurso. He sought to encourage and enhance the performance of flamenco, which had fallen into a period of decadence. The gaditano Falla recognized in flamenco a musical art form of great value. It was music Falla had spent years studying, having grown up with it, hearing it directly from Gitano friends, cantaores and tocaores. Enlisting the cooperation of Spanish intellectuals was considered crucial, to counteract the antiflamenquismo of the generación del '98; these reformers had condemned the flamenco arts as frivolous and regressive in their sweeping effort to modernize and transform Spain. Thus Falla aimed for an audience encompassing not only flamenco circles, but also to influence the musical world and its culture.

In order to find colleagues to help sponsor and promote the Concurso, Falla gathered together an impressive group of musicians and artists. Included among them was the young poet Federico García Lorca. At twenty-three, the granadino Lorca became an activist in popularizing the Concurso, second only to Falla. Lorca worked to publicize the event by giving oral presentations and publishing essays about the Flamenco arts. A third important figure was the Basque painter Ignácio Zuloaga.

Among the broad array of music figures enlisted were classical composers Joaquín Turina, Federico Mompou, Conrado del Campo, and Óscar Esplá, pianist and composer María Rodrigo, composer and conductor Kurt Schindler of New York, various orchestra directors, classical guitarist Andrés Segovia, Polish singer , and popular guitarist Manuel Jofré. Andalusian poet Juan Ramón Jiménez (1956 Nobel Prize) joined the Concurso. Writers such as Ramón Pérez de Ayala and Tomás Borrás, surrealist painter Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, and an association assisting the Concurso effort, the Centro Artístico of Granada, contributed. Added support came from two influential professors: philosopher Francisco Giner de los Ríos and Catalan musicologist and composer Felipe Pedrell (Falla's early music teacher). Later came French writer Maurice Legendre, music critics including Adolfo Salazar of Madrid's El Sol, producers, and publicists, with nods from Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky.

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