Galiardo brings jazz to GAMPA

Well known jazz musician Juan Galiardo, a regular in Gibraltar’s jazz scene, led the jazz workshops yesterday at GAMPA as part of the Gibraltar International Jazz Festival. The three-day festival culminates tonight with a concert in St Michael’s Cave with the legendary Jose Feliciano.

The workshops, which brought together a group of jazz musicians led by Mr Galiardo, was aimed at influencing Gibraltar’s younger generations of musicians and introduce them to the genre.

Head of GAMPA Christian Santos said it was the academy’s job “…to try and introduce youngsters to different forms of music or in performance art as much as possible.”

Last night Juan Galiardo and his team of musicians also took part in the ‘One Night Only’ event as part of the festival.

Mr Galiardo has been part of the festival since it began and says he has noticed an improvement in the number of people showing an interest in jazz locally.

Talking about yesterday’s sessions with the young musicians, he said, it was good for younger people to play and hear different music other than what they are used to.

Day one of the workshops placed particular importance in introducing the genre with the six musicians playing jazz to the students in an interactive way. The session looked specifically at the history and development of jazz.

Today the sessions continued for the more advanced students and will focus on improvisation and performance.

The feedback from the students yesterday was positive.

Well-known local singer Tiffany Ferrary explained how she had always been exposed to all kinds of music as well as classical and how she now sees music in a broad way. The jazz session she said proved very educational and she found it really interesting to listen to the genre.

Meanwhile Gabriella Richardson noted how “things like this are quite rare in Gibraltar” and how much she enjoyed it. Another student Nichola Mcauliffe said she believed the session had been “a great experience for us young musicians to broaden our knowledge.”

Aimee Gabay is a student on work experience with the Gibraltar Chronicle.