Ethnographic Description

     I went to see Concha Buika at the Sanders Theatre in Cambridge on Friday. It was an amazing unexpected experience. I had not read the description of her music nor researched anything about her prior to the show, so when she began singing in Spanish I was taken back. It began to make a lot of sense because many of the audience members were Spanish speaking and at first I thought it was a coincidence until I heard the music. The music was great, it sounded like there were some African elements in there but I mostly heard flamenco and jazz fusion. The show began slowly with just a couple of people swaying but by the end the entire crowd was into it and some dedicated fans were reciting every word to her songs. 

     When it came to singing Concha Buita had a very interesting voice. It was not the typical high pitched voice, it was raspy and deep. She would start off by whispering and then gradually raise her pitch to the point where she was yelling. There weren’t too many lyrics in her music; it was more of a scat singing. Her band was also interesting. There was a guy who played the grand piano, he did a lot of what looked like improvisational stuff too, and he played one or two pieces on the electric keyboard too. There was another band member who played percussion; he had a snare, a cymbal, some kind of wooden standing drum, and a box drum that he sat on. There was supposed to be a bassist too but I think she said he was sick. She talked a little bit in between songs, in English. 

     The audience was really mixed, all age groups, more middle-aged people than I would have thought. Also, there was a little bit of back and forth with the audience, people would just yell out phrases in Spanish to her but nothing disrespectful. I thought the show was over at a point but there was an encore. This was very exciting because I had never experienced it before. Overall it was a great experience, I learned a lot about performance from Concha Buika, mainly how important interacting with the audience is because it really provided everyone with a feeling of comfort and the ability to better relate to the artist.