'Thaw' returns, Miguel Poveda returns, singing the poems of his homeland.

BarcelonaAt first, it wasn't entirely clear to me. Miguel Poveda, a Badalona native "born in Vall d'Hebron," as he says, had no plans to make an album in Catalan. The insistence of Lluís Cabrera, the visionary founder of Taller de Músics, was certainly persistent, as usual. And a series of circumstances converged so that it was released in 2005. Thaw (Discmedi), a beautiful and exciting album in which Poveda sang apples by Sebastià Alzamora, Joan Barceló, Joan Brossa, Enric Casasses, Narciso Comadira, Gabriel Ferraté, Valentín Gómez y Oliver, Maria Mercè Marçal, Joan Margarit, Josep Piera and Jacint Verdaguer. The voice of singer, flexible and generous, and the arrangements by Joan Albert Amargós, Chicuelo, Marcelo Mercadante, Enric Palomar and José Reinoso worked their magic, sometimes more flamenco, other times more jazzy, always impeccable.

Twenty years later, Thaw It preserves its status as a marvel. The proof is in listening to the album again, now in a reissue that includes a bonus feature: a song based on the poem. If the world were, by Joana Raspall. "We'll sing it at the Liceu," Poveda says, referring to the October 15 concert, part of the Barcelona Jazz Festival program, where she'll have special guests: the musicians of the copla La Principal del Llobregat. "It was during the pandemic that I set Joana Raspall's poem to music, and it came out with a sardana-like feel. And that's when I spoke with Lluís Cabrera about reissuing the album," Poveda explains in the interior garden of Barcelona's Hotel Alma.

Poveda looks at the cover of the Thaw from 2005, and compares it with the one from 2025. In one, he says, he looks like a bargain Rafa Nadal. In the other, he looks like Gabriel Rufián. And he laughs. He sprinkles the same humor into the story of the origin of it all. The TNC had asked him to sing a poem by Verdaguer, To my kissing singers"They gave me the option of singing to him in Spanish, but I decided to do it in Catalan. It was a duty I had," he explains. After a while, sharing a night in Granada with Enrique Morente and Juan Habichuela, Cabrera played the Verdaguer card. "I wanted him to sing To my kissing singersI didn't feel like it, but Morente suddenly said: "If I were Catalan, I would have already recorded in Catalan, just as if I had been Galician. I would have sung in Galician, and from the Basque Country, in Basque. You're so lucky, do it, you're one of the few who can do it." Thaw was just starting to walk. "I used the money from the Puig Porret Prize in Vic to buy books and pay for the production of the album. And then it became an obsession, as always happens when I get involved in a project I like," he says. As he himself recalls, Thaw It's "the Poveda who sings the poems of his land." And he doesn't rule out a sequel. "I'd like to delve deeper into women poets, of which there are many excellent ones in the Catalan Countries," he asserts.

The live premiere of the song If the world were at the Liceu it will be within the framework of a show called Distinct, like Juan Ramón Jiménez's poem that says, "They wanted to kill his equals because he was different." "I have an increasing desire to sing a repertoire of social protest. It's becoming more and more difficult to turn our backs on what's happening. Right now we're talking, and in Gaza they're killing more children, families, innocent people," says Poveda, brandishing a mug with the colors of a watermelon, the image used on social media. "In the face of barbarism, in the face of genocide, in the face of this atrocious massacre, I will always raise my voice in favor of peace," he adds.