songs recorded at home:

Some years ago I bought a couple of condenser microphones and called some singer-friends to come home to record several songs, mainly from musicals. It was just for fun, but we learned a lot in the process, and I think we had a great time. Today I discovered a folder with all these recordings and thought it would be nice to share them here, as a nostalgic exercise.

I remember the musical *Flor de Nit* with special delight. The lyrics were written by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán and the music was composed by Albert Guinovart. When I played as a repertoire pianist at the musical theatre school *Memory* the teachers proposed this musical as a final course project for the students. There was a problem, though: no piano score existed. So I worked hard to write it, for almost all the themes. Sadly, I wrote it with pencil and in a cryptic style, so I cannot share it here for others to play. Maybe even I am unable to read it after so much time. I have great memories from that time. Especially when the composer himself came to see one of the performances. It was one of those really special moments in a lifetime. After that, I called the great Betty Lamb, a fabulous soprano who recorded many pieces with me. Some of them are better recorded than others, but after many years, it is the remembrance what has value to me, not the technical details. First of all, let's listen to the main theme of the musical, a delicious song with a flavor of copla, recorded during a raining evening:

In one of those sessions, the very nice tenor Joan Tous came to record with Betty a gentle theme,

In this musical, there are some songs with a strong Spanish flavor. For example,

We almost didn't rehearse the next two, but I enjoy listening both

One day, Betty brought a friend of her, Juanjo Morales, a great lyric singer who recorded a sweet duet with her,

and also a couple of solo's. First a male and gentle version of the main theme,

and an exquisite tango included in the musical as a show inside the show,

But from all the recordings of this musical, the one I enjoy the most is this quite surrealist theme,

I think Betty was especially great in this latter performance, and the audio quality was much better as well. We were learning a bit!

Another set of recordings came with a concert we prepared with Desirée Povedano. We simply called it *Desi & Friends* and she had the privilege of being accompanied by Betty Lamb herself and the great Olalla Muiños, a stunning singer with a great voice and an even greater personality. We recorded many songs, mainly R&B even though we have almost no black blood in our veins. But it was very fun. I list here some of the best (or funniest) moments:

Playing some Vanessa Carlton:

I love Eva Cassidy versions:

Not as beautiful as Christina Aguilera's version, but... :

Having fun trying to emulate Destiny's Child. The song is originally by the Bee Gees:

In NYC with Desicia Keys:

And again with the great Desicia:

A lovely song by Esperanza Spalding:

Desincée covering the Haiti version:

Betty between Mariah Carey and Michael Jackson:

From "The Last 5 Years", a musical by Jason Robert Brown:

Trying to emulate the grande Ariana Grande in another musical by JSR:

Some time later, Olalla recorded a really beautiful song from "The Little Shop of Horrors":

She also played the reprise, with my weird help as an improvised Seymour:

After that, she prepared one of my favorite songs ever. From The Little Mermaid:

And also the reprise:

After that, we had some small sessions. In one of them, Desirée recorded a beautiful song by Jason Robert Brown:

Then, Betty Lamb came with a set of three wonderful songs. The first, from Sondheim's Follies:

I think Betty gives the song a true old Broadway style. Only a living musical encyclopedia like her could grasp that flavor so well. The second and third were from JSR's Songs for a New World:

The fourth was one by Mecano, and we felt free to make a weird version of it:

I had a short collaboration with a great lyric soprano, Laura del Río. We recorded three well known arias, which I share here.

I became nostalgic today and wanted to share these moments. They were fun and great times. I have very good memories of all these singers and I hope we can record more songs in the future. I don't know why, but when you summon your happy memories, music always comes to mind. From the last recordings, at least four years have passed, during which I heavily turned into science. But now I realize how I really miss to play songs. One day the universe may be understood in terms of science, but other worlds out there will have discovered the same science. However, each music piece is unique in the whole universe, and that makes it truly trascendental.