Miguel Espinoza blends flamenco guitar with world sound

By Steve Graham

Miguel Espinoza’s family has lived in the San Luis Valley since the 1500s, planting deep personal roots in Colorado. But his musical roots are distinctly global.
Espinoza left Colorado to study flamenco guitar in Spain and New Mexico, soak up jazz in New York and revel in the rhythms of northern India. These art forms and other international styles all influence his current band, Miguel Espinoza Flamenco Fusion. The Denver-based sextet has released two albums and played its unique and uplifting world music all over Colorado.
Although Espinoza is the marquee name, he said the group is collaborative.
“Everybody in the group is highly creative,” Espinoza said. “We all throw in the pot together. We all go in as equal partners in all the music.”

The ‘boiling bath’

He said he retains and respects the flamenco style, while mixing in other sounds.
“I have this boiling bath of tradition,” he said. “We are walking the fine line of tradition and innovation. A lot of flamencos really dig what we’re doing.”
After high school, Espinoza moved to Spain and honed the traditional forms in dance studios.
“Because I was accompanying dance for a living, my hands and my rhythm became so strong,” he said.
He was eventually drawn back stateside to travel for several seasons with the acclaimed dancer Maria Benitez. While in New York, he sat in for a jazz club performance and realized he could do more with the guitar than the fast finger work and steady rhythms of flamenco.
“It kicked my butt,” he admitted, laughing. “I didn’t know anything about how to modulate or change keys.”
He brought those new jazz influences together with his flamenco guitar and Indian Tabla rhythms to create a group called Curandero. The duo recorded with Béla Fleck, and Kai Eckhardt of the John McLaughlin Trio.
“I had always had this love for music from India,” said Espinoza, who recalls being enraptured at a young age by a Ravi Shankar performance.
Espinoza also released solo albums before finding several new bandmates, including cellist Dianne Betkowski, and creating the Flamenco Fusion group.

A new sound

Betkowski also had a passion for music at a young age, having found a guitar in an alley as a child and teaching herself chords.
“I was always trying to make music one way or another,” Betkowski said.
Betkowski eventually found her calling on larger strings.
“I like the tone of the cello. It’s really like a part of my body,” she said.
And Betkowski found her musical home in Espinoza’s band.
“The things I am really good at I wasn’t good at until I met Miguel,” she said.
Betkowski keeps a busy schedule. In between private music lessons and substitute gigs with the Colorado Symphony, she founded Denver Eclectic Concerts, a continuing live music series that combines classical and non-classical performances.
When she approached Espinoza to perform in another new concert series, she ended up helping him create a new band.
“He had a couple of pieces he was working on, and we got right to work playing,” Betkowski said.
Espinoza said he had long been looking for the right cellist to bring a counterpoint to his zippy flamenco guitar. He describes Betkwoski as a natural percussionist and flamenco player.
“It’s like she was born and raised with it,” Espinoza said.

Rounding out the band

Saxophonist and University of Denver jazz professor Lynn Baker was another founding member of the group. Andy Skellenger builds and plays the Cajon, a traditional Peruvian box drum. He also plays Tablas and brings south Asian influences.
Randy Hoepker plays bass in the group. He is also conductor of the Colorado Brass, and teaches jazz improvisation and arrangement.
The newest member of the group is a second drummer, Mario Moreno, who plays conga and timbales. The paired drumming brings a multicultural mix of rhythms.
“There are just really different colors of sounds,” Betkowski said. “I think it’s really a kind of music that people feel really strongly on an emotional level.”
Espinoza agreed, noting that many listeners also connect spiritually.
“A lot of people say they really feel like they went to church,” he said.
While they wait for a chance to provide those musical services in a live setting again, Espinoza and Betkowski continue providing private music lessons, and hope to relaunch their inclusive Urban Arts Music camp for kids in 2021. When they can provide camps and concerts again, they look forward to sharing plenty of new sounds.
“Music just pours out of Miguel like breathing,” said Betkowski. “By the time we can get together again, we will have a lot of pent-up musical energy to disperse.”

Steve Graham is a freelance writer and former newspaper editor who takes his two boys biking, hiking and brewery-hopping in northern Colorado.