The eighth Splendid Festival Menorca opens this Thursday with a performance by María Terremoto, one of the leading voices of the new generation of flamenco. It will be the singer’s first appearance at the Teatre Principal in Maó.
A flamenco dynasty
María Fernández Benítez, known as María Terremoto, was born in Jerez de la Frontera in 1999 into one of flamenco’s best-known families: her father is the singer Fernando Terremoto and her grandfather was the legendary Terremoto de Jerez.
At 16, she won the Giraldillo for best new artist at the Seville Flamenco Biennial, the youngest artist ever to receive the award.
An award-winning album
Her latest album, Manifiesto, has been widely praised and has collected several prizes:
- Best Flamenco Album at the 2026 Spanish Music Academy Awards;
- Best Flamenco Song at the same awards, for “Miraíta – Rumba a la Libertad”;
- the 2025 Andalusian Culture Prize for flamenco.
The record mixes traditional forms with contemporary touches.
The concert
In Maó she will be accompanied by Nono Jero on guitar, Juan Diego Valencia on percussion and Manuel Cantarote on palmas and rhythm. The programme moves from the intensity of the romance to the energy of the bulería, in a show that she describes as an attempt to convey simple, pure emotions.
The rest of the festival
The Splendid Festival continues through the summer:
- 16 July – Marco Flores dance company
- 30 July – the music of Maria del Mar Bonet
- 27 August – family show by Pica Pica, closing the festival
The Teatre Principal in Maó, opened in 1829, is the oldest opera house in Spain still in use, and an atmospheric setting for a festival that has become one of the highlights of Menorca’s summer cultural calendar.
