† Mr. Enrique Morent, Rest in Peace † | Solea

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Enrique Morente, one of the world's most celebrated flamenco singers, whose work embraced both traditional styles and contemporary influences as diverse as George Gershwin and Leonard Cohen, died on Monday (13.Dec. 2010) in a Madrid hospital. He was 67.

Hospital officials confirmed the death to The Associated Press, giving no cause. According to many reports in the European news media, Mr. Morente died as a result of complications of surgery he underwent earlier this month.

Known for his impassioned stage presence and keening, incantatory vocal style, Mr. Morente was for decades an internationally renowned cantaor, as flamenco singers are known in Spanish. To the end of his life he remained a master of cante jondo ("deep song"), the most traditional of the traditional flamenco styles.

But while Mr. Morente kept one foot loyally planted in a centuries-old art, with the other he strode briskly into modernity. Widely described as "the father of new flamenco," he often fused the genre with an unorthodox spate of musical styles, including jazz, rock, classical, Afro-Cuban, American popular song and Bulgarian a cappella.

His approach incensed some flamenco purists, who considered the form — believed to have originated during the Renaissance — inviolable. Other critics were delighted, however, crediting Mr. Morente with reviving interest in a musical tradition that was homogenized during the years of Franco's dictatorship and later ossified into the aural equivalent of tourist kitsch.