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The Rio Loco festival on the banks of the Garonne River in Toulouse, in the south of France, welcomed an audience eager to listen to music again without health restrictions and to enjoy the rhythm of music from around the world. In the middle of the dog days, under a leaden sun and 40 degrees Celsius, 46,000 visitors discovered the Uruguayan artist Jorge Drexler, the Spanish Sílvia Pérez Cruz and the legendary salsa band from New York, Spanish Harlem Orchestra.
The organizers adapted this 27th edition of the Río Loco festival to the heat with drinking water points for the spectators, mobile humidifiers and a relief health team attentive to any problem.
The musical and cultural diversity led us to wander in the meadows at the edge of the river. There we find a number of artistic activities for the whole family. From traveling circuses to talks and debates to extravagant installations.
Bassist Alex Rigol, creator of the company ‘La Cresta’, in Barcelona, took us through his sound installation Orkestrónia, made with unusual instruments and available for adults and children from the age of six.
The material of this installation is 100% recycled and seeks to go beyond sounds, to promote interaction between visitors, as well as creativity for adults and children.
Jorge Drexler, Ibero-American Pop
The Uruguayan artist Jorge Drexler connected with the French public, after 13 years of absence. For him, this meeting in Río Loco marked a new relationship with France that, as he explained, “will be closer and more common.”
The composer and performer gave himself completely seducing the audience of Río Loco with his poetic pop music. Drexler currently lives in Spain, where he has collaborated with artists such as C.Tangana to “renew his music” with very diverse musicians.
Awarded several times at the Latin Grammy Awards, at the Goya Awards and at the Oscars for the music from the movie ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’, he spoke to us about his latest album ‘Tinta y Tiempo’.
Sílvia Pérez Cruz, a hypnotic Spanish voice
Among the outstanding female voices invited to Río Loco was that of Sílvia Pérez Cruz. Coming from Spain, she arrived in Toulouse with her magical voice, along with her friends from the group ‘Farsa Circus Band’, with whom she presented her album ‘FARSA (impossible genre)’.
He told us that it has been made with songs made after various artistic collaborations, such as the music theme of the animated film ‘Josep’.
The multi-instrumentalist mixes jazz, bolero, flamenco and fado. Sílvia Pérez Cruz sings in Catalan, Portuguese, Spanish or Galician, so it is difficult to put her in a box. She claims that freedom that allows her to have an almost hypnotic connection with her audience.
The Spanish artist also says that her art reveals the frailties of human beings.
The fire of the Spanish Harlem Orchestra (SHO)
The Spanish Harlem Orchestra (SHO) traveled from New York to the stage in Toulouse. Its members sing their love for music.
In the latest album, ‘Imágenes latinas’, the SHO vindicates its values and origins from all over Latin America, as one of its creators, Oscar Hernández, who grew up in New York and originally from Puerto Rico, told us.
Among his successes he has three Grammy awards and the music of the famous series ‘Sex and the City’. Hernández was in an interview with Carrusel de las Artes just before going on stage, where he, along with his accomplices, left the French public a tasty salsa “souvenir”.
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