cantaora y creadora ecléctica
acerca de mi - about me
Mi actividad profesional tiene como hilo conductor el estudio del repertorio clásico flamenco y su re-interpretación. Como profesora de cante flamenco promuevo la investigación acerca de una didáctica específica para la enseñanza del cante, especialmente en el marco del conservatorio de música. Como artista, el eje temático de mis actuales creaciones es la investigación acerca de las posibilidades del cuerpo y la voz flamenca y su poética a través de la improvisación y la performance. En todas mis producciones abordo la composición vocal y los arreglos musicales con un espíritu acorde al contexto, al concepto y a mi sensibilidad poética.
The main subject of my professional work is the study and reinterpretation of the flamenco classic repertoire. I am a teacher at the advanced music conservatory, and my main research interest is the didactics specific to Flamenco song. Currently, as an artist, my goal is to investigate and develop the potential connection between voice and body in Flamenco, through improvisation and performance. In my productions, my approach is to personalise vocal compositions and musical arrangements within the context of my own artistic concepts and poetic sensibility.
Su trabajo - her work
Músico Musician
Among her most remarkable works are the arrangements for “Para-Das” also, a musical collaboration in the creation of the spectacle “Lirios entre espinas” (directed by Guillermo Weickert). She has directed a flamenco vocal ensemble for Pedro G. Romero’s work “Las procesiones”. She has been the music director of the company Improversátiles and of the performance, work in progress, “De Vísceras y otros cantes”.
She has composed the original score for poems like “Vals”, by Pablo Neruda, “Cirlot”, a selection of texts from the book Browning by Juan M. Cirlot, “Coplas de pecho y despecho” and “Canción de los martes tristes”, by Alexis Díaz Pimienta, “República.1”, a collection of popular songs contained in the Episodios Nacionales by Benito Pérez Galdós, and "Droguita del experticio" for the piece “Concierto Amateur”, by Laila Tafur.
She has also collaborated in the original score for the documentaries “Yindabad” by Mariano Agudo and “Tebraa: Retrato de mujeres Saharauis”, a collective work by andalousian women.
Cantaora Flamenco singer
She was awarded a scholarship for the study of flamenco singing granted by the prestigious Cristina Heeren foundation in Seville, where she studied song with maestros Naranjito de Triana, José de la Tomasa and Paco Taranto, and rhythm (compás) with Manuel Soler.
She studied music and flamenco singing at the conservatories Cristóbal de Morales of Seville and in the ESMUC of Barcelona, where she graduated in Flamenco Singer Music in 2011.
In Italy, she toured major national theatres as a singer (Carcano, Nazionale and Castello Sforzesco in Milan, Comunale and Arena del Sole in Bolonia, Prati, Parioli and Manzoni in Rome, and in Palermo, Catania, Bari, Genova).
She collaborated in the CD Minimale, for the Jazz’it magazine, and L’attesa, by Alberto Capelli and his quintet Alkord, presented in the MEF (Seville, 2010) and in the Blue Note of Milan (2011), among others. She recorded Falla’s Amor Brujo (1914) with Nuovo Contrappunto Italiano for the Amadeus label, with performances all around Italy.
She has also performed in other countries, such as France, Switzerland, Albania, Montenegro, Japan, Mexico, Cuba, etc.
Performer / Improvisación Performer / Improvisation
Starting with "Lirio entre espinas" (G. Weikert), Charo Martin has been developing the connection between the physical and musical of the work and the concept of performance. Thereafter, she started to work around the “singing body”, particularly in “DeVísceras y otros cantes”, (work in progress in the Nit flamenca by Pedro G. Romero, MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporáneo, 2014). Bienal de Arte Flamenco de Sevilla 2022.
Along the same lines, she participated in various improvised pieces:
- With Alexis Díaz-Pimienta in Improversátiles
- WIth “Los Chunnis y La Patafísica” in the laboratory of theatrical action Vladimir Tzekov (Granada, 2013) and in Alanis de la Sierra (2014)
- With Pedro G. Romero en Las Procesiones (2016), performed in the Malaga Pompidou Centre and in Espacio Santa Clara (Sevilla)
- “Mangave”, for the event organized by Pedro G. Romero in the sessions “Tras rito y geografía del flamenco: territorios, redes y transmisión - La ciudad de los gitanos / Casa Puerta” (Sevilla, 2017)
- The site-specific performance Alchimie, by Silvia Moscati and Rochetta Matei with Alberto Capelli and Begoña Castro (Bologna, 2017)
She collaborated in the documentaries “La Felicidad en el trabajo” by Alonso Gil (2008) and “Graves y agudos” by Adán Barajas (2019).
Docente e Investigadora Teacher and researcher
From 2014 she holds a chair in flamenco singing at the higher music conservatory Rafael Orozco of Cordoba. She developed the syllabus of the subjects Flamenco singing, Flamenco singing to accompany dance and Vocal technique applied to flamenco. In the last years she has been developing an teaching method for flamenco singing in the context of music education. With that aim, she has researched in areas that belong to the musical aesthetic of flamenco singing, as the melodic-rhythmic phrasing in the different flamenco styles or “palos, the musical articulation in flamenco lyrics, the development of a especific vocal technique that facilitates the development of the music personality of the singer, etc.
She has also worked as a voice training teacher in other educational institutions:
- LANMO, Laboratorio Nacional de Materiales Orales of UNAM, México (August, 2016). "Seguir dando el cante”. Flamenco y Repentismo en el s. XXI
- Conservatory G.B Martini of Bolonia, within the EU's programme Erasmus+ for mobility of teachers (April, 2019). “La estética del cante flamenco”, for the jazz singing department directed by professor Diana Torto
Finally, she participated as a speaker in different congresses, the main ones being:
- I Interdisciplinary Congress of Research and Flamenco: INFLA (8-9 June, 2009) "Flamenco de papel”
- Plataforma Independiente de Estudios Flamencos Modernos y Contemporáneos (PIE.FMC), Sevilla (November, 2013) "Aprehender el cante". "Recursos metodológicos para la enseñanza del cante flamenco”
- Granada, Portal Flamenco (2013). Diputación de Granada. "Desde el conservatorio, conociendo el cante”
- University of Fribourg, Germany (November, 2014). From "terrain” to stage: Traditions of improvised performes and their change in form and function, “La casa del Quejío”
- "La enfermedad en el imaginario flamenco. Derivas de la práctica artística en cante flamenco", ponencia performativa en el lº Seminario de Investigación: Representación y performatividad de la enfermedad como síntoma de la vida contemporánea, UCLM Bellas Artes de Cuenca (2024)
“Todo anda revuelto
en el interior de la ballena
perdidamente desordenado
los relojes bajo los muebles
se detienen”
Charo Martín
