News — Bárbara Martínez

"Te Kamelo" Dedication to My Elementary School Students

I have spent the last three months teaching music online at the elementary school where I have been working for the last nine years. I have never had to do anything like this before in my entire life, and neither have my students in their 5-12 years of life.

I learned so much about music, about communicating, about sharing my ideas, and about the importance of connecting in these lonely times. When it was time to share the final music activity for the school year, I chose to record a song for them with one of my oldest friends and music collaborators, Arturo Martínez, otherwise know as "Espiritu Gitano" (The Gypsy Spirit.) He wrote this song originally in dedication to the 9-11 tragedy. But over the years, we have been singing it in different contexts that each seem to redefine the meaning of the song, and yet the message is still the same: LOVE CONQUERS ALL!

For my youngest students, I prefaced it by saying that this song is about missing people when times are hard. It has some words in English, Spanish, and Caló, the language of the gypsies in Spain. I told them to make sure to listen to the message I sang for them in English towards the end, and to clap along with me and sing along with me whenever I repeated the name of the song, TE KAMELO, which means "I love you." Thank you, Arturo, for the vulnerable sensibility that makes all of your music so special. And thank you for allowing me to be a part of the evolution of this song over the last 20 years!

SOLITUDE IS A BAD ADVISOR!

One of my oldest friends and favorite musicians in the world, Gonzalo Grau, challenged his musical friends to sing out the solitude of this quarentine, and I accepted! Latin music SONEROS spend their lives perfect the art form of improvising messages that flow with the music and “soniquete” of the choruses that, themselves, also carry an important message. I don’t consider myself a SONERA, but I did my own thing with all my respect to the real SONEROS out there ❤️😜👏🌟🎉

LA SOLEDAD ES MALA CONSEJERA

SOLITUDE IS A BAD ADVISOR

CANTA CONMIGO Y OLVIDA TUS PENAS

SING WITH ME AND FORGET YOUR SORROWS

AY CANTA AQUÍ CONMIGO LOS SONEROS TODITOS

SING WITH ME ALL SONEROS

QUE TODO PASARA, TU SABES QUE SI, NO SE QUEDEN SOLITOS

EVERYTHING SHALL PASS, YOU KNOW IT, DON’T THINK YOU’RE ALONE

LA SOLEDAD… / SOLITUDE…

QUE TRIQUI TRAN TRAN TRERO AYYY

NO ME MUEVO DE AQUI, HASTA QUE TU DIGAS QUE SI

I WON’T MOVE FROM HERE UNTIL YOU SAY SO

CANTA Y OLVIDA TU DOLOR

SING AND FORGET YOUR SORROWS

CANTA Y OLVIDA TU DOLOR

SING AND FORGET YOUR SORROWS

LA SOLEDAD ES MALA CONSEJERA!

SOLITUDE IS A BAD ADVISOR!

Gracias Gonzaaaalooooou

www.GonzaloGrau.com

@gonzograu & @laclavesecreta

Live Video Series Premiere

I am happy to say that we are finally launching the first of a series of videos recorded live at The Bridge Studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. These are songs that I have been doing in my own with what feels like an ever-changing group of musicians. On this particular day, I was so lucky to have the incomparable Engin Kaan Gunaydin, Andrés Rotmistrovsky and Andreas Arnold with me to do something special with this song by Diego Carrasco. Thank you so much guys! I hope you enjoy! 

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