Seize this unique opportunity to enjoy renowned author and master musician, Tomás Lozano, bring Spain's most loved traditional ballads to life. This expressive and simple oral poetry of rural and medieval Spanish origins is, as the eminent poet Juan Ramón Jiménez called it, the river of the Spanish language. Lozano is considered one of the world’s foremost experts on these Spanish ballads and will bring to you this river of the Spanish language and more. He is, without a doubt, one of the greatest modern-day keepers of this ancient oral tradition, playing for and enlightening audiences around the world. His calling was seeded when a teenager, growing up in Barcelona, Spain. Today, Lozano is the only artist in the United States to bring these ballads to stage with singular emotive beauty. He mesmerizes listeners with his voice in accompaniment of guitar, hurdy-gurdy, or tambourine. Concerts last approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes and include Lozano's light and entertaining historical explanations woven between songs.

Reviews for the Romances

“On Saturday April 23, 2011 at the Ethnic Cultural Theater, singer, musician, and folklorist Tomás Lozano entertained an enthusiastic audience of University of Washington students and faculty, local Spanish teachers, and members of the larger Latino community with a moving performance of Hispanic Ballads sung in Castilian, Galician, Catalan, and Judeo-Spanish, and representative of the ancient and modern oral traditions of the Iberian Peninsula and of the Sephardim. Alternating effectively between lighthearted and more tragic ballad themes, Lozano’s haunting voice and his impressive, at times, dazzling musicianship delighted his listeners from the first song to the last encore, as did his sparingly interspersed, well-delivered mini-histories of a ballad or of the regional diversity in ballad instrumentation, or his mini-lesion on how to make the hurdy gurdy produce it’s melodic, if hypnotic, buzzing sound. It’s difficult to imagine an audience that this charismatic and talented young performer could not captivate within a matter of minutes, as indeed he did on this memorable occasion.”

Suzanne H. Petersen
NW Cadiz Program, Executive Director
Div. of Spanish & Portuguese Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

"Tomás Lozano es un virtuoso de la música que, con la ayuda de sus instrumentos tradicionales y sus comentarios lúdico pedagógicos, sabe transportarnos a la época de los cortesanos, los pícaros y los mercados en las plazas porticadas de la España del medievo y del barroco. Un concierto de Tomás Lozano es un lujo para un filólogo o un historiador, a la vez que consigue ser puro deleite para los oídos profanos en la materia."

Fernando Martín
Education advisor
Director - Spanish Resource Center Spanish Resource Center - National Hispanic Cultural Center
1701 4th St. SW Albuquerque NM

“It is uncommon to hear Romances performed at all in this day and age. But it is truly rare to experience them in a performance by an exceptional musician and student of Romances who has dedicated much of his professional career to their study. Tom Lozano is undoubtedly one of the masters in the performance of this genre.”

J. Clancy Clements,
Professor Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

“The balladeer, Tomás Lozano, consummate musician and master craftsman, spellbinds his audiences
with his golden voice as he plays instruments he himself has made. His repertoire covers a wide array
of ballads from the classical to the contemporary. His pacing of songs cum introductions guarantees an informative and delightful experience for all.”

Anthony J. Cárdenas-Rotunno
Professor of Medieval Spanish Language and Literature
Associate Chair, University of New Mexico

To arrange a performance contact Tom at: tlozanoramos@yahoo.com

The program consists of the Hurdy-Gurdy’s journey through time. With the help of images from a Power Point, the audience will travel to the Middle Ages, when the first recorded ancestors to the GH appeared. As the audience progresses forward along the timeline, Lozano will unveil real models of this curious instrument, each of them retrieved from a specific period of history. Lozano, together with the audience, will explore each model to see how the HG evolved at every historical nexus point up till our modern day. Finally, to make the journey a complete experience, Lozano will usher in the dimension of sound. Audiences will hear Lozano play and sing live on the HG models the types of tunes and songs associated with each of them, both historically and culturally.

The program will contain from Cantigas of Santa Maria, from the 13th Century, to Troubadours songs, renaissance tunes, to traditional European hurdy gurdy melodies.

This highly educational and experiential performance will open to audiences the mysterious world of the Hurdy-Gurdy, a unique and largely unknown musical instrument that is now, once again, quietly becoming vogue. Audiences will learn about the instrument’s evolution, historical repertoire, famous musicians who have played it, as well as the hidden mechanics that make it work.
This program runs for approximately 45 minutes. It is intended for all young audiences, and can be adapted to specific age groups. The program for adult audiences is a one hour show.

Reviews for A Journey through time with a Hurdy Gurdy

Tomás Lozano presented a fascinating hour of music, pictures and history of the Hurdy-gurdy. Many of us, if we have any idea of the instrument at all, think of it as a historical novelty but after learning of the rich history of the instrument and the developments that have taken place over the centuries, I have a renewed respect for the builders, as well as the performers on the instrument.

The presentation was enriched by photographs of numerous churches which contain carvings of early instruments and always include a form of the hurdy-gurdy from that era. I now realize that the many forms of the hurdy-gurdy found frequent use as an accompanying instrument for church choirs, minstrels, and other musical presentations.

It was of special interest to me to learn of use of the instrument today in folk and even jazz music in different parts of the world.

Danny J. Duncan, D.M.E
Emeritus Professor of Music
Eastern Kentucky University
Richmond, Kentucky

To arrange a performance contact Tom at: tlozanoramos@yahoo.com

General

Tom Lozano and Clancy Clements, who make up the group Daily Bread, have been playing traditional music for over two decades. They perform traditional music from Iberia, Ireland, France, and Italy, using traditional instruments rarely seen or heard by most people. Lozano sings, as well as plays a traditional hurdy gurdy, flamenco guitar, and a Galician traditional tambourine. Clements also sings, and plays the Galician bagpipe, the English border pipe, and the Hümmelchen ‘bumble bee’ Renaissance-style bagpipe, Spanish guitars, and a bamboo percussion instrument called caña. They have been playing together, in various configurations, since 2006.

Educational Performances

Both Lozano and Clements have also been educators for over 20 years and have given many lectures, workshops, and performances, both nationally and internationally. Their programs are, in essence, an educational experience for their audiences, without their realizing it. Every song has a brief informative introduction about what the piece entails and what to watch and listen for. This sets the mood for its presentation. As the program progresses, Lozano and Clements illustrate how melodies and rhythms are played on the instruments and how they blend the different levels of sound together to create an integral whole.

Their educational performances are special for a number of reasons. They teach about traditional music through hands-on demonstrations of the instruments, showing how they work, the variety of sounds they produce and why.

To arrange a performance contact Tom at: tlozanoramos@yahoo.com