Germán López, in the Amman Jazz Festival
Again this year, the Instituto Cervantes in Amman is participating in the Amman Jazz Festival organised by Orange Red with a very special concert by one of the best timple players and musicians from the Canary Islands, Germán López, who has travelled around the world promoting the timple with his recordings.
Germán López was born in Gran Canaria in 1982. His musical studies begin at an early age, where he was accepted to study at the Conservatory of Music in Las Palmas at seven years of age. In the conservatory, Germán studied piano, music theory, and jazz studies. At the ripe age of ten years, he began to concertize publicly, notably collaborating with legendary timple virtuoso José Antonio Ramos. It was around this time that Germán developed a keen interest in the timple and other traditional Canary Island instruments. In addition to duo and ensemble concerts, Germán López has also collaborated with symphony orchestras, including the Philharmonic Orchestra of Gran Canaria in the “Teresa de Bolívar” festival. As both an educator and performer, Germán López has been awarded public prizes by the government of the Canary Islands on several occasions.
At the end of 2007, the illustrious Womad festival shone a bright spotlight on Germán López, inviting him to take part on that year’s festival program held in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Since then he has continued to perform concerts all over the Canary Islands, mainland Spain, and continental Europe, including WOMEX (2014 and 2015), the Zaragoza International Exhibition (2008), Vic’s Live Music Market (2008), Womad Cáceres (2014) and Womad Fuerteventura (2014), to name a few of them.
Germán López has released three studio albums, including: “Timplissimo” (2006), “Silencio Roto” (2009), “De Raíz” (2013), and in (2016) he released an album with guitarist Antonio Toledo.
He has also recorded with bands like The Lost Fingers, Mestisay, Taburiente, Totoyo Millares, Luis Morera and a variety of esteemed songwriters such as Sergio Alzola, Diego Ojeda and Luis Quintana. He has shared the stage with renowned musicians including Pancho Amat, Troveros de Asieta, Mestisay, Jorge Pardo, Antonio Zambujo, Nancy Vieira, Celina Pereira, Sidiki Toumani Diabate, Budiño, Andreas Pritwittz, Victor Merlo, Antonio Toledo and The Lost Fingers.
Director of the Womex Opening Concert in 2018, he comes to Amman with Augusto Báez, who will accompany the fresh and unique melody of Germán's Timple on the piano.
The TIMPLE is a diminutive 5 stringed instrument intrinsic to music of the Canary Islands. Of all the hypotheses that exist about the origin of the «timple», the most widely accepted is that it descends from the European baroque guitar, smaller than the classical guitar, and with five strings.
Unlike the ukulele that it resembles, the timple has a full resonance despite its high timbre, possibly due to its rounded back. The timple is related to other “travel guitars”, including the “cuatro” from Venezuela, the “charango” from Andean countries, the “cavaquinho” from Portugal or Brazil, and, of course, the Hawaiian “ukelele”.
