Alberto Ablanedo profile picture

Alberto Ablanedo

Bouzouki player from Asturias

About Me

www.albertoablanedo.com
Alberto Ablanedo (Oviedo, Asturias, Spain, 1976) is one of the musicians of the so-called Asturian "Folk Generation", the second wave of traditional musicians that follows the pioneers that re-invented Asturian traditional music in the late 80s.
After spending a year studying in London, Alberto returns to Asturias to finish his English studies at University. He soon joins the band Dubram. In the following years he becomes a member of the bands Los Gatos del Fornu, Llangres and Bron, he plays in a trio with Borja Baragano (Llangres) and Xuan Nel Exposito (Felpeyu) as well as guesting in concerts and recording with Brenga Astur, Taranu, DRD, Tejedor, Andecha Folkor d'Uvieu, Grupo Principau, Irish band Neffbros, Celtia and singer-sogwriters Humberto Caras and Alfredo Gonzalez. Since then he has performed extensively in Asturias and the rest of Spain, as well as in France, Italy, Portugal, UK and USA.
He plays the bouzouki as his main instrument, trying to maintain the high level of playing of superb Asturian musicians like Elias Garcia, Igor Medio or Ruben Bada. He also plays guitar, bass, mandolin, bodhran, whistles and low whistle.
Alberto playing with Diego Pangua, Xosé Ambás and Dolfu R. Fernández for the TV Series "Camín de Cantares". Below, from another episode of the same series, Alberto playing with Xosé Ambás, Pepín de Muñalén & Sergio Rodríguez
In 2002, the song "Branes d'Antanu" by Los Gatos del Fornu, arranged by Alberto and Igor Medio (RIP) is named Best Asturian Song as voted by the readers of online news site Asturies.com. He has also done arranging work in some of the tracks of Humberto Caras' "Colores, Olores, Ruidos" by Humberto Caras. He has played extensively all over Spain and also in Portugal, Italy, UK (incluiding Celtic Connections) and USA.
These days, Alberto works at a school in Aviles and acts as a freelance musician with bands like Tejedor, Axu or Humberto Caras. He is also the webmaster of the Spanish weblog www.FolkenlaRed.com , trying to increase the awareness of traditional music through the internet. He has also published articles in Asturian newspaper Les Noticies and british magazine The Living Tradition . A website in English, www.AsturianMusic.com with extensive information about Asturian music is currently being constructed and new info is added daily.
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My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 2/26/2006
Band Website: albertoablanedo.com
Band Members: I'm mostly a backing musician, so it's me who is normally playing with other people, and not the other way round :-)But this nearly always comes with me to the gigs:

Axu:
Héctor Braga: vocals, harp, hurdy-gurdy.
Pepín de Muñalén: wooden flutes.
Gelu Díaz: drum programming.
Alberto Ablanedo: 12-string DADGAD guitar.

Baragaño, Expósito & Ablanedo:
Borja Baragaño: wooden flutes.
Xuan Nel Expósito: accordion.
Alberto Ablanedo: bouzouki.
Humberto Carás:
Humberto LL. Carás: vocals, guitar.
Pepín de Muñalén: wooden flutes, whistles
Dani Jiménez: bass guitarr.
Senén Fernández: drums, percussion.
Alberto Ablanedo: bouzouki, 12-string DADGAD guitar.
Tejedor:
Jose Manuel Tejedor: asturian bagpipes, whistles.
Javier Tejeror: accordion, whistles, percussion.
Eva Tejedor: vocals, percussion.
Horacio A. García: double bass.
Ramón G. Morán: keyboards.
Jesús Castro: drums.
Rubén Alvarez: guitar.
Alberto Ablanedo: bouzouki.

A small cameo in a TV programme, playing in the local session:

Influences: Donal Lunny, Arty McGlynn, John Doyle, The Bothy Band, Planxty, Llan de Cubel, Elias Garca, Igor Medio, Malcolm Stitt, Tony McManus, Ian Carr, Stephen Cooney, Niall O'Callanain, Andy Irvine, Jamie McMenemy, Dougie MacLean, Nickel Creek, Bela Fleck, Tim Edey.
Record Label: Independent
Type of Label: None

My Blog

L’Outoño

I just put a "new" song on the player. It's "new" because it wasn't here before, but it's actually quite old, from 2001. L'Outoño (myspace doesn't allow "ñ" in song titles or so it seems) is one ...
Posted by Alberto Ablanedo on Sat, 17 May 2008 11:58:00 PST

New Song: Skanda - Na Mio Barca

There's a new song in my player for everyone to hear. I was a guest musician in two tracks of Skanda's "El Cuartu" (The fourth). They are a folk/rock band from Asturias and you can check their myspace...
Posted by Alberto Ablanedo on Mon, 10 Sep 2007 11:32:00 PST

Tejedor gig with Kepa Junkera (video)

I played in a big gig on Saturday with Tejedor and we had quite a few guests. A friend kindly shot a couple of videos. The one above is from sound check, with famous basque accordion playe...
Posted by Alberto Ablanedo on Sun, 20 May 2007 08:33:00 PST

Knight Rider

Ok, I can't help it. I'm all about wacky stuff when playing music. One of my trademarks in sound checks is the good old Knight Rider. A while ago I recorded an improvisation (if you can ca...
Posted by Alberto Ablanedo on Sun, 06 May 2007 12:55:00 PST

Camín de Cantares

A new TV programme about traditional music started 4 weeks ago in TPA (the government-owned regional TV of Asturias). Camín de Cantares, conducted by Xosé Ambás form the band Tuenda, has quickly beco...
Posted by Alberto Ablanedo on Sun, 22 Apr 2007 07:09:00 PST

BBC again

The BBC specials for Celtic Connections were broadcasted last weekend. You can see me on the first one, playing two songs with Tejedor. The first one was actually something that wasn't planned and it ...
Posted by Alberto Ablanedo on Wed, 21 Mar 2007 02:45:00 PST

Tejedor in BBC Scotland TV. Celtic Connections Special

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/music/celticconnections/whatso n/tv_scotland.shtml From that page you can access some of the videos of the BBC Scotland Celtic Connections Special that was broadcasted yes...
Posted by Alberto Ablanedo on Sun, 11 Feb 2007 11:54:00 PST

New Project: Héctor Braga and Axu

Hi all.I just wanted to write a wee bit about a new musical project I'm involved with.I used to play in the band Llangres with fiddle player Héctor Braga. I left the band a year and a half ago, but I ...
Posted by Alberto Ablanedo on Fri, 02 Feb 2007 07:28:00 PST

News, sort of...

It seems I never get to update this in a formal fashion. Anyway, there's some news in my musical life. Nothing too big, but worth mentioning. First, it seems we are finally reforming the yet unna...
Posted by Alberto Ablanedo on Mon, 13 Nov 2006 02:43:00 PST

New Song

Long time, no update.I've uploaded a new track from a live recording. It's a set of four Asturian tunes played by Borja Baragaño (from Llangres) on the flute, Xuan Nel Expósito (from Felpeyu) on butto...
Posted by Alberto Ablanedo on Thu, 12 Oct 2006 03:17:00 PST