Begoña Olavide

Begoña Olavide is a pioneer in the recreation of Spanish music of the 13th and 14th centuries, particularly the music of "Al-Andalus", i.e. the Moorish period. She has described herself as fascinated by the three cultures - Islamic, Christian and Jewish - that co-existed in Spain at this time. She is a virtuoso psaltery (qanun) player, which she took up after finding a "forgotten" instrument. According to the sleeve notes for her album "Toques in Tiempo": "There was no-one who knew how it should be played, nor what possibilities it possessed". Before that, she had played the flute.

Begoña Olavide is a pioneer in the recreation of Spanish music of the 13th and 14th centuries, particularly the music of "Al-Andalus", i.e. the Moorish period. She has described herself as fascinated by the three cultures - Islamic, Christian and Jewish - that co-existed in Spain at this time. She is a virtuoso psaltery (qanun) player, which she took up after finding a "forgotten" instrument. According to the sleeve notes for her album "Toques in Tiempo": "There was no-one who knew how it should be played, nor what possibilities it possessed".

Before that, she had played the flute. Alongside her career as a soloist, she is also the leader of the group Mudéjar, which she formed in 1994 to explore the musical traditions of Al-Andalus further. There is an official website for both Begoña Olavide and Mudéjar at www.musicamudejar.com. You can go directly to the English section of this site if you enter the URL: www.musicamudejar.com/eng/principal_eng.html. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL..