The 11th of December, I had the pleasure of seeing Juan Manuel Mora, a young cantaor from Barcelona, at the Madrid tablao Las Tablas. Far from having that gravelly voice that has come to be expected of purist flamenco singers, Mora has a distinctly young and delicate voice, prettier than it is gut-wrentching, which is more or less appreciable depending on the audience’s mood and expectations.

I’d seen Mora before in the 2008 Flamenco Pa’ Tos galas, where he’d impressed me slightly more than at Las Tablas, probably because of the better sound system, lighting and space, which, like it or not, has a big influence on the audience’s experience, especially with an art form as intimate as flamenco and a show that consists of only two performers: singer and guitarist.