Raquel Andueza: "When you lose your voice, you lose your way of communicating with the world."

BarcelonaLosing her voice was simultaneously one of the best and worst things that ever happened to Raquel Andueza (Pamplona, ​​1980). Following a car accident that dislocated her larynx in 2016, the Navarrese soprano was forced to stop singing for almost six months, until two teachers from Italy, Lisa Paglin and Marianna Brilla, helped her regain her voice. "When you lose your voice, you lose the way you communicate with the world," says Andueza. "However, I learned that singing could be easier and that the voice is an instrument that should last a lifetime." Now the Baroque singer feels "freer than ever" and this year she is one of the stars of the eighth edition of the Espurnes Barroques festival, which takes place in central Catalonia over five weekends from this Friday until June 8.

Raquel Andueza felt a natural inclination towards early music since she was a child, and often asked her pianist sister to play Bach's "Blue Libretto" that was circulating around the house. "It's not overly complicated music and goes straight to the soul," says the singer. "But despite seeming simple, it's more complex to sing, because the joy lies in dazzling through simplicity." Trained in Pamplona and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, Andueza has sung on the world's finest stages accompanied by renowned international conductors and ensembles. In 2011, she founded Raquel Andueza & La Galanía, alongside Jesús Fernández and under their own label Anima e Corpo, and they have received great critical acclaim. This Sunday, May 11th at 6 pm, and as part of the festival, the ensemble will perform the following works in the church of San Miguel de Castelltallat (Sant Mateu de Bages): Pearls of the Seicento, a concert of 17th-century Italian, French, and Iberian works. "Many of the composers are anonymous because we like to recover lost works that are usually unsigned and give them a voice," Andueza notes.

The Voice as a Jewel

The festival has chosen Andueza to represent an edition centered around the jewel. The concept celebrates everything that, despite seeming superfluous and accessory, is essential and full of memories. Along with chef Jordi Roca—who also lost his voice—the soprano opens the festival this Friday in Solsona with a panel discussion on the voice as joy. "Our emotions are perceived in the voice and the burden we carry in life is reflected," explains the soprano. As a result of her experience, the singer discovered a love for teaching and gives lectures and courses around the world, in addition to having her own studio in Pamplona. On the morning of Saturday, May 10, in Sant Joan de Vilatorrada, she will offer a workshop on the voice. The soprano believes that "it is important for us to know what our voice is, to be more flexible and able to communicate better with the world."

This is the first year Andueza has collaborated with Espurnes Barroques, a festival she'd wanted to sing at for a long time. The soprano, also director of the Early Music Week in Estella (Navarra), invited director Josep Barcons to talk about the festival in a series of talks with the European Early Music Network, and they connected. "We must emphasize that not everything that shines has to be gigantic," the singer notes. "It's very easy to direct the Granada or Santander Music Festivals, which have a budget in the millions, but it's much more impressive to build a festival from scratch, as Barcons has done."