Comares Verdiales Festival

Every July, the Plaza Balcón de la Axarquía hosts the traditional Verdiales Groups’ Gathering, an unmissable event for lovers of Málaga’s folklore.

The event features numerous guest groups representing the three styles of verdiales, who put on performances and re-enact the traditional «choques», one of the most characteristic features of this cultural tradition.

The deep-rooted place it has held in popular folklore has led to Comares has its own distinct styles of verdiales: the “Almogía style”, the “Montes style” and the “Comares style”, maintaining a melodic and profound instrumental rhythm, which is hugely popular in the province, and performed in a distinctive way because they embody a unique understanding of the festival, bringing it into closer harmony with the rugged beauty of the surrounding mountains.

The Panda “Comares-style” It consists of a violin, two guitars, a tambourine, two cymbals and a lute. Furthermore, every verdiales group has its own “mayor”, the person responsible for organising and leading the group during its performance. In the verdiales of Comares, then, there is nothing superfluous; everything is shaped by centuries of tradition, with an undeniable ancestral richness, not without certain echoes of the Agarenos.