Paco Pena Helps Keep Flamenco Burning : Guitarist Insists That It’s a Living Art Form and That Tradition Will Decide What Is Worthy

In many ways it seems ironic that Paco Pena should be considered the chief exponent of flamenco puro. He may not have appropriated any of the Sinatra repertory, as those unlikely crossover phenoms the Gipsy Kings have, but he has collaborated with John Williams, Eduardo Falu and Inti-Illimani.

His newest recording, in fact, is a flamenco Mass, matching the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chorus with members of Pena’s own Flamenco Company.

“Sometimes traditionalists and classicists in flamenco respond negatively,” Pena acknowledges. “I feel absolutely open. I think there is a green light to creativity.”

The guitarist reminds us that flamenco is a living art form, not a re-creation of a codified past. In time, he suggests, today’s flamenco nuevo will become tradition too.

“What I feel,” he says, “is that, in fact, tradition will decide what is good about innovation.”

Sunday afternoon, Pena offers a solo recital at Orange Coast College, closing a six-stop U.S. tour timed to the release of his “Misa Flamenca” recording. He also tours with his troupe of dancers, singers and other guitarists, which he hopes to bring to California this autumn, after a stint in Australia.

Avid for any challenge, Pena works readily in either format.

“I am always updating my own self,” he says. “I love to be a soloist, to have the sole responsibility, but it comes from my own tradition, which is accompanying singers and dancers.”

Pena turned to his own roots for his first solo recording for Nimbus Records, in a characteristic fusion of tradition and innovation. Flamenco is basically an improvisatory art, albeit on standard patterns, so Pena’s covers of creations by Ramon Montoya and Nino Ricardo make a paradoxical sort of iconoclastic hommage.

“It’s not that I play every note as they played,” Pena says, “but I know their language. I discovered so much about them, and they influenced everybody else. From Montoya I learned about the lyricism of the guitar; with Ricardo it was the pure emotion he expressed.”

He has since recorded for Nimbus another solo album, duos with Falu and now his Mass.

The creation of a 40-minute, classically structured work for chorus with flamenco singers and guitarists came about from a commission for a Polish festival. Since Vatican II in the early ‘60s, flamenco music has occasionally been incorporated in Catholic liturgical services in Spain, but for such an ambitious project Pena had few precedents.

“I had to study the liturgy very carefully. Doing that, certain rhythms and figures came into my mind, which suggested appropriate flamenco forms.”

The composer hopes his creation will travel well, in performances with other choirs. “We’re going to film the Mass in a few months. I see the possibilities opening up tremendously. The difficulty is to sound truly flamenco.”

There’s a rub. Pena doesn’t believe you must be either Spanish or Gypsy to play flamenco, but he insists deep immersion in Andalusian life and culture is required.

“I see flamenco as a very true statement, direct from the soul. It’s a true statement of emotion, something we all have but are not perhaps so aware of.”

Recognizing both the universal sensitivity of flamenco and its native roots has generated a far-flung career for the 49-year-old musician. In addition to his concert tours, Pena has established the Centro Flamenco Paco Pena in his hometown of Cordoba and in 1985 became the world’s first professor of flamenco, at the Rotterdam Conservatory.

Pena is noted for amazing technical fluency and expressive nuance, but above all for integrating the bravura display into the totally true, spontaneous statement of emotion he sees as the heart of flamenco. That is something that is not always effortless for a solo artist on the road, far from the wellsprings of his art.

“My music is not easy,” Pena says. “To me, a concert is a serious matter. I don’t pretend that this is a normal day. I prepare myself technically, and psychologically build myself up to the performance. When I sit down and play, finally I have to tap all my resources.”

Paco Pena will perform Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at the Robert B. Moore Theatre, Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. Tickets: $8.50 in advance, $11 at the door. Information: (714) 432-5880.