: 17 may. Jazz & beyond. Creative hurdy-gurdy and improvisation with Martín Blanes
Remarkable online workshop for the Zona da Zanfona Spring Masterclasses in April-May of 2026. Taught by Martín Blanes from Galiza, musician specialized on Jazz and Contemporary music.
The two hours workshop include material for further study to understand the basics of the Jazz applied to the hurdy-gurdy with a new approach to the instrument to expand the capabilities, favour your creativity and broaden your own musical language.
This masterclass is indicated for all levels with introductory contents easy to understand and practice to more sophisticated ones for the advanced players.
Details:
- Type: online + extra study material
- Duration: 2 hours
- Times: 6 pm to 8 pm (UTC+2 or Central European Summer Time)
- Date: Sunday 17th of May 2026
- Language: English
- Enquiries: matricula@folque.com
- Fee: 35 € + bank fee 2 €. Discount for all 4 sessions: 120 € (+ 5 € bank fee)
- Registration: ZdZ’26 Series here
About the masterclass
In this masterclass you will learn the basics of jazz and improvisation with the hurdy-gurdy and how to explore and develop your playing and musicianship through improvisation. One of the goals will be to try to demystify improvisation, providing new resources and techniques to take a step forward your creativity.
This masterclass is about Jazz but also about how to use all these techniques to apply them to any other style. The recent advances in hurdy-gurdy building and techniques allow to play styles of music where this instrument was not present historically, opening new musical fields.
Content will cover a bit of the history and characteristics of different jazz styles. Also fundamental characteristic of Jazz such as dynamics, articulation, fingering and expanded techniques; fundamentals of how melody and harmony interact with each other and how to apply and explore them on the hurdy-gurdy.
Extra material will be given to participants including scores and sheet music, transcriptions, text guides, videos of the examples and backing tracks, bundled with a bibliography and lists of recordings and references to keep exploring jazz and improvisation.
About the teacher
Martín Blanes is a musician from Ourense, Galiza, Iberian Peninsula who has spent more than thirty years working to revive and promote Galiza’s musical heritage. He studied symphonic composition under prestigious teachers such as Antón García Abril. He is the composer of numerous works for orchestra and soundtracks for films, documentaries and TV. He holds a postgraduate degree in Ethnomusicology, specialising in Galician music, and is the author of numerous publications in this field.
His most recent work focuses on the revival of the hurdy-gurdy in Galiza and its adaptation to the contemporary music scene. He studied the hurdy-gurdy with masters such as Germán Díaz, Matthias Loibner, Valentin Clastrier, Tobie Miller, Steve Tyler, Scott Marshall, Efrén López, Marc Egea, Oscar Fernández, Anxo Pintos, Iván Costa, Iván Abal… amongst others. As a musician, he has given concerts in numerous countries across four continents. Over the past year, his social media posts have gone viral, bringing the hurdy-gurdy to over a million viewers.
He is currently working on his ‘Advanced Technique Method for the Hurdy-Gurdy’ and the debut album of his bands ‘Martín Blanes Jazz 4tet’ and ‘Burozos’.