Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga, the influenced musician [final]

Alba Conejo Mangas

Name: Alba Conejo Mangas. Main subject: Historical violin. Research supervisor: Wouter Verschuren. Title of the research: Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga, the "influenced" musician. Research question: Is it possible to distinguish the influence of pre-flamenco in the villancicos of Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga? Summary of results: During my research, I never imagined finding music from Lima or Guatemala composed by Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga, a musician from Córdoba, Spain, in the XVIII century, who had never been in these places. This discovery presented an interesting challenge: to bring back to life scores that had been forgotten for over two hundred years and to explore the music played in Córdoba Cathedral during the middle of the XVIII century. My interest on Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga started when I listened to a beautiful villancico "Voy buscando mi cordero" by Gaitán y Arteaga, performed by La Orquesta Barroca de Sevilla with Enrico Onofri. Despite being sacred music composed for the church and for weekly mass, it was written in Spanish and carried a distinct Spanish folkloric flavour. Did Juan Manuel Gaitán y Arteaga have a connection with XVIII century Spanish folk music? This caught my attention and spurred me to delve deeper into his music, particularly his villancicos. I soon realized how little-known Juan Manuel's music is today The line of research I pursued falls within the realm of musicological-historical research. The musicological techniques employed include those related to musical historiography, such as the chronological organization of historical-musical events, particularly in Córdoba. Additionally, it involves an understanding of musical compositions, forms, and styles, as well as musical aesthetics, encompassing the conception of music, its functions, and purposes. The objectives are: to understand the musical personality of Gaitán y Arteaga in his villancicos and the relation between the folkloric and ecclesiastical world in Spain on XVIII C. Biography: Born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, she finished her modern bachelor under the guidance of Gordan Nikolic in Rotterdam. It was then, that she started her interest in historical performance. After her graduation, she studied for her baroque bachelor's in Brussels under the guidance of Ryo Terakado, and in 2022 she started her master's degree at The Hague Conservatory with professor Ryo Terakado too.