Category: Spanish

Elif Sanchez: Mi Voz

September 21, 2022

Art and life merge in the luscious voice of Elif Sanchez, and her second album offers the privileged listener an international voyage, no passport required. Her music rests on a traditional foundation of family and schooling: Born Elif Cakmut in Istanbul, she grew up singing Turkish and Azerbaijani folk songs with her mother, had a classical conservatory education, learned oboe and English horn, played in a symphony orchestra, studied jazz … More Elif Sanchez: Mi Voz

Lúcia de Carvalho: Pwanga

June 15, 2022

Lúcia de Carvalho has a friend who coaches people in writing personal testimonies designed to increase self-esteem. At the end of a project in Angola the friend asked the women farmers she had worked with to pose for a photo and noticed that no one smiled. A translator advised her to reassemble the group and ask, in Chokwe, “Pwanga ni puy?” (Light or darkness?)—and he women all responded “Pwanga!” as their faces lit up. This is the … More Lúcia de Carvalho: Pwanga

Aguamadera: Las historias que han dejado

June 3, 2022

Walk from Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego singing in Spanish and everyone along the route will understand the lyrics, the 10,800 km (6,700 miles) between the two points constituting the longest more-or-less straight line in the world you can travel using a single language. Covering the music shared by Latin America and Spain is, of course, an encyclopedic task. But as impressionistic adventures go, Las historias … More Aguamadera: Las historias que han dejado

Yungchen Lhamo: Awakening

May 18, 2022

Like a mountain wind or a force of nature, Yungchen Lhamo’s voice gracefully and powerfully opens Awakening, her sixth album, demonstrating that beauty exists to direct our attention. In a rare convergence of planetary decay and pandemic, she suggests, all humanity faces the same existential challenge, highlighting how connected and interdependent we are. Surely this … More Yungchen Lhamo: Awakening

Dúa de Pel: Madera de Pájaro

April 14, 2022

From their formation as Dúa de Pel in 2014, Eva Guillamón and Sonia Megías lived the rarefied life of itinerant artists, flying to Buenos Aires and Beijing, to New York and Tokyo, to London and back to Madrid, performing, lecturing and giving masterclasses, observing assorted cultures as folklorists and musicians. Then came 2020: Along with all humanity, they became marooned nomads traveling only via … More Dúa de Pel: Madera de Pájaro

Mónica Giraldo: Hubo un Tiempo

January 18, 2022

Like ripples on the water or wrinkles in time, the songs of Mónica Giraldo’s seventh album radiate gently. Water and time, in fact, are central features of the Colombian singer-songwriter’s 10-track collection Hubo un Tiempo (There Was a Time), reflecting on the doubts of the pandemic era, the changes we weather alone or share with humanity, and the beauty and certainties that remain. While … More Mónica Giraldo: Hubo un Tiempo

Alex Cuba: Mendó

October 20, 2021

When Alex Cuba imagined his eighth album his dream may have seemed unreachable: He wanted songs that reflect the struggle and emotion simultaneously separating and uniting all humanity but he didn’t want them forever associated with a pandemic. If threading that needle wasn’t challenge enough, the albums behind him—earning him two Juno Awards, four Latin Grammys and three Grammy nominations—represented a tough act … More Alex Cuba: Mendó

Héctor Valentín: Me Quité

September 7, 2021

More than coffee or summer rain, Cuba is drenched in music. It emanates from bars and homes, along Havana’s Malécon, from the streets and squares of cities and towns, from the public buses that weave through the countryside. Along with the merging of European and African traditions that produced a cornucopia of genres, the island’s perpetual soundtrack helps explain why Cuba is a music superpower. Héctor Valentín occupies one of the highest perches … More Héctor Valentín: Me Quité

José Alberto (El Ruiseñor): Mi Tumbao

May 18, 2021

A freedom-fighting poet named Perucho Figueredo wrote La Bayamesa, Cuba’s national anthem, on horseback in 1867, after Spanish authorities surrendered to pro-independence forces in Bayamo. More than 150 years on, the city—located in eastern Cuba’s Granma province—still has abundant horse traffic and resounding music composed locally by José Alberto Tamayo Diaz, popularly known as … More José Alberto (El Ruiseñor): Mi Tumbao

Delfina Cheb: Doce Milongas de Amor y un Tango Desesperado

March 24, 2021

The heart exerts its own form of gravity: The farther it travels, the more it feels the tug of home. When 18-year-old Delfina Cheb arrived at Boston’s Berklee College of Music she recalls drinking in the global music universe—but when she began writing songs she found herself drawn to the sounds of Buenos Aires and the spray of the Río … More Delfina Cheb: Doce Milongas de Amor y un Tango Desesperado