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Maria Del Mar
Bonet
Maria was born on the island of Majorca
where she learned traditional Balearic songs as a small child.
She moved to Barcelona in 1967 and began to sing with Els
Setze Jutges, an important group of Catalonian composers-singers,
and made her first stage appearances and first record with
four traditional songs from Menorca.
The following year censors, under the
Franco regime, forbade her to sing one of her most popular
songs Què volen aquesta gent. She then began to perform
abroad, in the early seventies appearing in France, Denmark,
England and throughout her long and successful career has
performed in: Switzerland, Venezuela, Mexico, Portugal, Poland,
Italy, Sweden, Germany, Greece, Tunisia, Holland , Belgium,
the former URSS, and Japan.
In 1971, one of her records with the
songs L’Aguila Negra (The Black Eagle) and No voldria
res més ara, won the Spanish golden disk award.
A few years later, Maria del Mar Bonet
began a series of concerts in the Plaça del Rei in
Barcelona (Festival) which have taken place every summer right
up until present day and have become an excellent opportunity
for her to meet her Barcelona public.
In 1981 she recorded Jardí Tancat
in Paris with arrangements by Jacques Denjean in partnership
with Alan Stivell. In 1984 the French government awarded her
the Charles Cross Academy Prize for the best foreign record
edited in France. That same year she was awarded the Cross
of Sant Jordi, the highest distinction of Catalunya.
In 1988 Maria worked with Spanish choreographer
and dancer Nacho Duato to create Arenal, a popular combination
of song and dance. They followed this with Jardí Tancat
(winner of 1st prize for choreography in Köln, Germany),
and Cor perdut
Maria Del Mar Bonet continues to be
in great demand all over the world and adds consistently to
her impressive list of award-winning recordings.
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