Spain and Portugal for Visitors

Bagpiper whose records and performances have a pop-rock flourish to them, but a serious, rigorous player with impeccable credentials, Carlos Nuñez may be Spain's most important folk artist of the moment.

Aragonese folk singer who is moving on to a larger stage, with Caribbean and other exotic influences and a smoky, cabaret-type feel. Niiiiice. The official Carmen Paris web site seems to be down - the link goes to a Yahoo Music page.

Spain's first female bagpiper to make records, and so, so young.

Another bagpiper, Asturian José Hevia is Galician Carlos Nuñez's arch enemy. He plays midi-bagpipes developed by himself, but is only a tad more commercial than Nuñez, and far less showy on stage.

Or rather, his foundation. Joaquín Díaz is a former folk performer turned researcher who has been collecting Spanish folk music for nearly four decades now, and his Fundación Centro Etnográfico essentially exists to make his collection available to the public.

The trikitixa is the Basque diatonic accordiona, and its prophet is Kepa Junkera, who in addition to playing an important role in Basque folk music with the emblematic Oskorri, has performed and recorded with The Chieftains, John Kirkpatrick and many others.

Galician band around since 1978, one of the top Celtic music bands in the world. The word "Milladoiro" comes from the Camino de Santiago (though I am not sure what it means: scallop, probably) and is a small place south of Santiago de Compostela, so is closely linked with the Camino. Milladoiro is Galicia's top folk group and, if only as a seven or eight-piece band with a strongly danceable sound, reminds people of The Chieftains.

Ex-singer of the satirically-leaning Al Tall, now a solo artist.

For decades, the most important performers of Castilian folk music in Spain, and quite often the only ones of note, though not any more.

The Basque folk group, active since the mid-seventies.

Young Galician bagpiper with a thoroughly orthodox background but original compositions in a discretely spaced out discography.