The following year, during the Mediterranean Flamenco Festival organized by Fundación Mediterráneo, the event will take place on Saturday, November 11, starting at 20:00 in Alicante (Avda. Doctor Gadea, 1). The program will showcase the winning artists from the 2023 International Cante de las Minas Festival as part of the festival lineup.
The Mediterranean Flamenco Festival will be extended through November 25, with parallel activities offered by the Mediterranean Foundation’s headquarters in Alicante and Murcia. These activities include a master class in dance led by Mercedes de Córdoba, lectures, a documentary film series, a flamenco photography competition, and an exhibition of the winning photographs.
Unión festival stands as a cornerstone of the flamenco world, renowned both nationally and internationally throughout its history. Its connection with the Festival del Cante de las Minas is supported by the Mediterranean Foundation’s talent program, Flemish.
According to Luis Boyer, President of the Mediterranean Foundation, a new collaboration is launching this year with Festival del Cante de las Minas. The latest La Unión award winners will perform together in a show at the Mediterranean Flamenco Festival.
The participating artists include Rocio Crespillo Luna (Mining Lamp winner) and Juan Luis Campos Triguero, known as El Poti (Bordón Award for best guitarist). Yoel Ferrer Vargas, recipient of the Desplante Award for best dancer, and pianist Raúl Pérez, winner of the Filón Award for best instrumentalist, will also take part.
Participants
Rocio Crespillo Luna, a singer born in 1998 in the Cañada del Rabadán area of Fuente Palmera near Écija, has flamenco in her roots. She performed on stage at age seven and soon realized a lifelong path in performance. She won the Ciudad de Ubrique National Flamenco Art Competition, her first competition, at age ten. Since then, she has collected many important flamenco honors, including the 2023 Mining Lamp award at La Unión festival. Her training continued at the Rafael Orozco Higher Conservatory of Music in Córdoba, where she studied flamenco singing, and she is pursuing a Master’s degree in Flamenco Research and Analysis at the University of Córdoba. In 2022, she was part of the experimental flamenco show Times of Plenty, produced by the Thyssen Foundation and created by Fernando Vacas.
Juan Luis Campos Triguero, better known as El Poti, was born in Granada and began playing flamenco guitar at twelve. Self-taught, he entered his first national competition at fourteen, Granada’s Young Flamencos, where he earned early praise from the Granada press and critics. At fifteen, he won the Granada Costa International Flamenco Guitar Competition, and at eighteen he claimed first prize at Jerez de la Frontera’s National Young Values Flamenco Guitar Competition, judged by flamenco luminaries. That same year, he also won the Kanal Sur National Young Values Flamenco Guitar Competition, cementing his status as a rising guitar talent.
Yoel Ferrer Vargas, born in Tarragona in 2003, has long pursued flamenco dance. He began formal training at age nine and has since earned multiple recognitions, including a gold medal in the Folklore category in 2016, the Extraordinary Award for Professional Training in the Arts of Catalonia in 2021, and the prestigious El Desplante Award in 2023. Through the years, his choreography has earned him attention in major competitions and collaborations with significant flamenco figures, highlighting him as one of the most promising dancers in Spain and beyond.
Raúl Pérez Fernández, an instrumentalist, started classical piano studies at the Cartagena Conservatory at fifteen and later deepened his craft with jazz. He moved to San Sebastián to study at Musikene, the Higher Conservatory of Music of the Basque Country, specializing in Piano Jazz, and has since built a distinctive career as a versatile pianist.
The Mediterranean Flamenco Festival is a program of Fundación Mediterráneo aimed at bringing flamenco culture to Alicante and Murcia, establishing a cultural reference that links the Foundation with flamenco as an element of intangible heritage. The seventh edition of the festival is scheduled to run from late October to late November, in the Alicante venue of the Fundación Mediterráneo (Avda. Doctor Gadea, 1). Tickets may be purchased at the box office or through the Foundation’s website. Subscriptions covering the entire festival include access to shows, the documentary series, and other planned events. Tickets are available at the box office or online for convenience, with options that guarantee entry to all activities in the program.