The musician, researcher, cultural producer and co-founder of Luis Martín Díez, died this Friday in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), as confirmed by the Segovia City Council, where the artist is the city’s Favorite Son. Martín Díez has gone down in history for his contribution to the analysis and renewal of Castilian folklore in the last five decades, in which he dedicated himself to this traditional music. The folk band had been active since 1969, with dozens of albums and songs claiming these songs. The deceased, voice, guitar and lute of the group, directed for more than 30 years.
The folkloric researcher participated in the more than 2,000 concerts performed by the Nuevo Mester de Juglaría and belonged, along with his colleagues Fernando Ortiz, Rafael San Frutos, Llanos Monreal and Paco García to the founding nucleus of the band, with three other members who previously left it. Together they released classic and crucial albums for him such as Los Comuneros or Romance del Pernares. The City Council of Segovia, his city, has issued a statement praising the figure of the artist as “an essential reference in the research, dissemination and preservation of traditional folklore” as well as a Segovian “cultural ambassador.”
The City Council has thanked Martín Díez for his “extensive artistic and cultural work” that took his themes to a national and international scale. Regarding the deceased, “whose mark will remain in the musical and sentimental history of Segovia,” they highlight his cultural background, with more than 20 albums, songs well known to several generations and hundreds and thousands of concerts in Spain and the world.
The group has also issued a loving and heartfelt message towards the musician. “Possessor of a splendid and very personal voice and an outstanding bandurria instrumentalist, Luis contributed his talent from the first moment until his last appearance on stage, precisely in the concert that the Mester offered on the night of San Pedro, last June 29, at the foot of the Aqueduct,” describe his musical colleagues. “Today, our colleagues at the Mester feel a emptiness and a sadness that is impossible to express in a few lines,” the statement concludes.
Another entity of great relevance to Martín Díez, the Folk Segovia collective, has also spoken out about this loss: “How difficult it will be to continue. It will be a very strange feeling when Folk Segovia returns this summer and you are not present, watching the concerts, walking around, giving us advice or enjoying on a terrace while the parade groups play.”
The organization has posted, along with these lines, a photo from this summer at said concert under the Segovia aqueduct, packed, with its neighbors listening to the folkloric reference for the last time: “Our heart goes out to your family, to your loved ones, to your colleagues from Nuevo Mester, with whom you were able to share one last concert in your city, in a plaza del azoguejo that, as always, was packed.”
