American philanthropist to be named honorary member of legendary Granada flamenco club

The world of flamenco in Granada is paying tribute this Friday to the American patron Cristina Heeren for her unconditional support to the province's flamenco movement. On 30 May she will be named honorary member of the Peña La Platería, a flamenco club to which she has belonged for 25 years.

The club's president, Víctor Vázquez, explained that Cristina will be accompanied by representatives from the world of flamenco across the province, including the Andalusian Confederation of Flamenco Peñas and people from Íllora, where she has a farmhouse and supports numerous cultural activities.

The event will also include a performance by former students of the Cristina Heeren Foundation school in Seville, where thanks to the American benefactor more than 8,000 young people from all over the world have been trained in singing, dancing and guitar playing.

"I am delighted. It's a great honour for me," Cristina Heeren, told IDEAL, SUR's sister newspaper in Granada. Admitting that she doesn't know many of the details of Sunday's tribute, she said, "I like surprises".

The businesswoman and philanthropist has had a close relationship with Granada since 1978, when she moved to Cortijo La Roza de Íllora, an olive farm at an altitude of 1,200 metres above sea level. Her daughter was born there and to where she still escapes whenever her work in Seville allows her to do so. "It is my refuge," she admits.

Cristina Heeren's great-great-grandfather was John Wanamaker, who made his fortune with the opening of the first commercial galleries in the United States and was a millionaire, philanthropist and marketing pioneer.

Cristina (New York, 1943) inherited a fortune from her parents, the businessman Rodman Heeren, of American, German and Spanish descent, and the Brazilian Aimée de Sotomayor. She spent part of her childhood in Biarritz in France, where she still has a mansion. She studied Comparative Literature at Columbia, Drama at Herbert Bergdorf's school and singing technique in Paris, where she worked as a filmmaker.

Cristina discovered flamenco through her father and figures such as Carmen Amaya, Antonio Ruiz Soler el Bailarín, Antonio Mairena and Pastora Imperio. She soon fell in love with Spain, where she met people like the filmmaker Orson Welles, writer Ernest Hemingway and the bullfighter Antonio Ordóñez.

Her relationship with flamenco in Granada goes back decades. "After having my daughter I spent a few years at home, but when I was able to move around I started going to summer festivals and met artists like Luis el Polaco, the Cortés brothers. I feel very linked to flamenco here," she says.

In fact, her initial plan was to open an international school in Granada, but her attempts were unsuccessful. "It's the most beautiful place in the world, but it has always been a bit on the fringes - it has its advantages - so I resigned myself and went to Seville. I'm where I have to be, in Triana, which is very important in the world of flamenco. But when I escape, I escape to Granada," she explains.

She does not believe that her status as a foreigner weighed heavily when in 1993 she founded her centre for the teaching, promotion and dissemination of flamenco under the umbrella of her foundation. I don't really know what people think and I don't really care, because I do what I think I have to do," she says. "In the early years I was very well advised by José de la Tomasa, Calixto Sánchez, Milagros Mengíbar and José Luis Postigo, as the school was his idea".

Her outreach work has earned Cristina Heeren numerous awards, such as the Commendation of the Civil Order of Alfonso X El Sabio from the Spanish Ministry of Culture in 2016; the Medal of the City of Seville in 2018; the Flamenco en el Aula honour award from the Junta de Andalucía; and admission to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes Santa Isabel de Hungría. "In Seville she is very famous, but in Granada she is unknown," says Víctor Vázquez.