November 12, 2004

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Palo Alto Online

Mediterranean songstress

by Robyn Israel

Sandy Miranda is knowledgeable when it comes to global music. She has been studying the genre for the last 17 years and hosts a "Music of the World" program on Berkeley-based KPFA.

Yet until recently, Miranda was not familiar with the works of Maria del Mar Bonet.

When Stanford Lively Arts approached her about giving a talk on Bonet's music Miranda agreed, curious to learn more about the Majorcan singer/songwriter.

"The thing that surprised me is that she is so famous in Europe, she's been performing for the last 37 years, and yet no one here has heard of her," Miranda said.

That will change next Friday, when Bonet makes her debut at Stanford's Dinkelspiel Auditorium. Miranda will lead a pre-performance discussion designed to educate the audience about the sultry Barcelona-based artist whose name is revered in many Mediterranean countries.

What is most unique about Bonet is that she sings exclusively in her native Catalan, the traditional language of Majorca. The largest of Spain's Balearic Islands, Majorca is a popular resort known for its mild climate and beautiful scenery.

Lush gardens there served as the inspiration for Bonet's latest CD, "Raixa" (pronounced Rasha). Originally built by Arabs during medieval times, the site now includes orchards, pools and pavilions. For Bonet, it is a "small paradise" that conjures up warm memories of her childhood in Palma, the island's chief city.

"For me, it is a picture of Majorca I did not want to be lost," Bonet stated in the liner notes of her CD. "Raixa should keep its mystery and its voices, still in its yard, its trees, its water..."

"Raixa" was recorded live at Barcelona's historic Placa del Rei, a walled square that was once the palace courtyard. Bonet has performed summer concerts there for the last 25 years, and the album celebrates her silver anniversary. The CD was recorded with the Ars Ensemble, with arrangements by fellow Majorcan Joan Valent.

"It's very exciting, the thought of how many hours I've spent with an audience that has accompanied me all along, between those walls," Bonet wrote. "The first time I ever saw the square was at the small hours of the morning and with friends; somehow, a little impressed by the atmosphere, we sat down on the steps. With the sound of water and the fountain and the clock's bell chiming, I hummed, in a very low voice, a song of toil, while thinking of how beautiful it would be to perform a recital in this place."

"Song of Toil," an homage to laborers, appears on "Raixa," along with stories of everyday people working the land. The CD also showcases Bonet's love of folklore and her commitment to poetry. In addition to her own lyrics, "Raixa" features poems by Alcover, Rossello-Porcel, Llompart, Turmeda, Ferra, Alomar and Rosalia de Castro.

Images of nature recur constantly throughout the CD, which celebrates the permanence of art and beauty on her native island. In "A Road Full of Flowers," Bonet sings of marigolds, wild roses, passion flowers, zinnias, honeysuckles and more. In the English translation, some flowers, such as olivarda and contell , are left in their original Catalan, as they are local words that defy translation.

Full of lush Mediterranean rhythms and sensibilities, the album is like a magic carpet that whisks listeners to an exotic locale. Bonet's velvety voice resonates through each of the songs, which range from secular to sacred.

"I've listened to that CD 10 times, and each time I listen to it I like it more," Miranda said. "She's like Judy Collins, with that gorgeous, lyrical voice of hers. But there's also a part of her that's like Joan Baez -- she's so political. She wants to keep the traditions of Majorca alive. She wants to keep Catalan alive.

"But after you get through comparing her to Judy Collins and Joan Baez, you realize she's unique. She sounds a little classical, too."

Born in Palma de Majorca in 1947, Bonet grew up in a highly militarized town, where nuns and priests were everywhere. Her mother was ahead of her time; she wrote a newspaper column about natural beauty methods and was also a vegetarian. Her father had a daily column called "Buenos Dias," in which he wrote about books, plays and films.

There was always music in her house, Bonet recalled, but it was her brother, Joan Ramon, who first introduced her to El Setze Jutges, a Barcelona-based collective that supported songwriting and Catalan folklore. In 1967, she moved to Barcelona, where she began to sing with El Setze Jutges.

Her first recording was four traditional songs from Majorca. At that time, the Franco regime (1939-1975) censors were forbidding people to use Catalan. Her 1968 song, "Que Volen Aquesta Gent" ("What Do These People Expect?"), a poem she set to music, was banned by the Spanish government. The song concerned a political activist from Madrid who was visited by the police in the middle of the night -- and whose mysterious death was reported as a suicide.

To continue performing in her native language, Bonet started touring beyond Spain's borders. For more than 30 years, she has expressed her fervent Catalan nationalism through performances full of passion and tradition.

"You can't separate politics from the human being, or from art or music," Bonet said in an interview with the Montreal Gazette last year.

Over the course of her career, she has recorded 20 albums and has traveled all over the world. She was pleased to discover that the Mediterranean was not just a sea, but more like a country.

"What really amazed me was to discover that the genuine Majorca -- the Majorca I loved -- was also to be found in North Africa, in Greece, in Turkey and in Sicily. We share customs, aromas, colors and music."

Ironically, Spain's regional music is still not as well known to its citizens.

"Facile cosmopolitanism makes the Spaniards accept everything that comes in from abroad, without properly appreciating what they have right at their doorstep," Bonet stated in Ronda Iberia. "There are a lot of ethnic or world music festivals here, but the odd thing is that none of them has room for the music that's being played and sung in Galicia, Catalonia, the Basque Country and other regions. Only Andalusia, with that natural force they call flamenco, has escaped the curse.... My feeling is that Spain is not especially loving toward its musicians."

Over the course of her career, Bonet has collaborated with a range of artists, from Greek musicians Theodorakis and Maria Farantouri to Brazilian Milton Nascimiento to American Jackson Browne.

And it's that kind of collaboration that makes world music such a wonderful example, according to Miranda.

"World music is part of the answer to this mess we're in. We need to understand each other and work together," Miranda said. "Her concert is the gumbo of all this -- or I guess you have to say the paella."

Who: Maria del Mar Bonet, presented by Stanford Lively Arts

Where: Stanford University's Dinkelspiel Auditorium

When: Friday, Nov. 19 at 8 p.m. Sandy Miranda will give a talk and slide show about Maria del Mar Bonet and Mediterranean music at 6:45 p.m.

Cost: Tickets are $38/$34. Half-price tickets are available for people age 15 and under, and discounts are available for students. The pre-performance discussion will be free and open to the public.

Info: For tickets and more information, contact the Stanford Ticket Office at Tresidder Memorial Union or call (650) 725-ARTS (2787) or go online to http://livelyarts.stanford.edu.

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