Cristina La Mar, songs of going and returning between Lloret de Mar and Bogota

BarcelonaThe Costa Brava, England and Colombia are the cardinal points that guide the musical trajectory of Cristina Pérez Tallada (Lloret de Mar, 1998), Cristina La Mar as her artistic name. "Lloret is my home, I love it very much. And I dreamed of Colombia; very accurately, I dreamed I was going there", explains the singer from Selva, who on Saturday, July 18th, performs at Poble Espanyol (7:30 PM), as part of the programming of the village of the Barts Festival. It is not surprising, then, that the songs on the album Una flor en la luna (Warner Chapell, 2026) are steeped in Mediterranean details and, above all, Colombian perfume, both rhythmically and in the sound of the strings. "Traveling through Colombia, I fell in love with Andean music. I enjoyed listening to it. Little by little, I met incredible people and began to listen to songs by great Latin American artists like Simón Díaz – from the Llanos –, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Mercedes Sosa...", she recalls.

She also discovered the sound of the Venezuelan cuatro, one of the essential instruments of llanera music. "It happened that I had many ideas in my head and I was in a hotel in Bogotá where there was no piano. A friend had given me a cuatro and immediately I thought it sounded very tender", says this singer, who, when asked about her influences, mentions Sílvia Pérez Cruz, Jorge Drexler, Valeria Castro, and, in general, artists who have internalized different folk music to express it from a contemporary perspective.

However, Cristina La Mar's musical universe was not always like this. England, the third cardinal point, played an important role at the beginning of this adventure. "I did a master's in musical composition in Bath, because I have always liked lyrics and composition," she says. At that time she was more focused on jazz, and later added more urban elements. "As a result of the pandemic, I returned home, because I had to take care of my grandparents – she explains–. That pause helped me to reflect. I always say that the universe was very wise. Everyone wanted to be influencers and do many things, but I preferred to give myself time to know which path I wanted to follow in music. And proposals from Latin America started to reach me".

The relationship with Colombia began as a month-long trip and then she returned several times. "I wrote songs for Colombian artists, more urban and pop-oriented people, until one day, with the piano, I started to set music to some poems I had and a person I knew, the English producer Richard Blair, suggested I send him some songs," summarizes Cristina La Mar. First they recorded three songs for piano and voice. Blair, who for many years was associated with Real World studios and who worked with artists such as Brian Eno, Carlos Vives, Daniel Lanois, Sinéad O'Connor and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, encouraged her to create a whole album: El perderse & el quererse (2024), with eight songs in Spanish and one in Catalan.

Later, the more intense contact with Colombian culture ended up shaping the Cristina La Mar of today. One of the turning points was A tu medida, a song shared with the Colombian artist Carolina Sarta. "We are both singer-songwriters. It was very nice because she invited me to Cali, we sang... And we have met several times and it has always been very nice. I really like to create a family. The objective of an album or a career is not fame or making money, but creating memories, bonds, family. And with her and her producer, Giovanni Caldes, we can do that," she assures.

Everything culminates for the moment in A flower on the moon, which is also the title of the song that best describes the album. "It has this thing about lullabies, because, in fact, I sing it to my sister's son. I feel it explains the message and the intimacy of the album. Besides, the moon has always been important to me. I remember that as a child I found it very difficult to be calm and sleep. I used to go out onto the terrace to look at the moon and I found a lot of calm there. The moon is recurrent in my songs, and the sea, which those of us born near the sea cannot ignore it", admits Cristina La Mar.