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Cançons de la nostra mediterrània
Ariola, 1982

Under the title Cançons de la nostra mediterrània Maria del Mar Bonet joined with the Valencia group Al Tall, specialised in traditional music from the Valencia region, playing traditional songs from all the Catalan-speaking parts: Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Isles, with assessment on questions of pronunciation and phonetics from the philologist Aina Moll. In this way this record should be understood as a reaffirmation of two concepts: that of the Mediterranean nature and that of the Catalan-speaking countries, the Països Catalans, at a social and political moment in time that claimed this latter concept before a Spanish transition which while in favour of forgetting old conflicts and setting into motion a recently newly-established democracy, ignored the national and linguistic differences of the Spanish State. Regarding the collaboration with Al Tall, Maria del Mar Bonet stated in an interview in the Diario de Valencia:  […] Our way of seeing popular music is creative and not closed. We enjoy working with it starting from the musical base, but creating something new. We are interested in starting from the roots.

Among the concerts Maria del Mar Bonet and Al Tall would do together for this album, mention should be made of in 1982 those in the Teatre Escalante in Valencia, in March and April; on the 18th of April in the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona; or that in the Teatro Español in Madrid in October.

In 1983 she took part in a benefit concert for the flooding. It was a year dedicated to giving concerts all over the Spanish State, highlighted by the tour in the lands of Galicia of June that year.

In February 1984 in the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris there were a series of recitals by three female singers from different countries of the Mediterranean basin. Maria del Mar Bonet, with the Al Tall group, began this series of recitals and played in the Paris theatre for a week. They were followed by Maria Farantouri, a great Greek singer, very well-known for her interpretations of Mikis Theodorakis, and the Sardinian singer Maria Carta. On the 15th March of that year she was awarded the Grand Prix Internationale du Disque de l’Académie Charles Cros, presented by the French Minister of Culture at the time, Jack Lang, for the best foreign record issued in France, a compilation album issued by the French label Avidis. It could be said that 1984 was the year of international recognition for Maria del Mar Bonet as one of the most representative voices of Mediterranean music. 

The idea of recitals around the concept of the Mediterranean would be repeated in Zaragoza, within the International Festival of Popular Music during May, and in Palma under the title “Voices of the Mediterranean” in September. On these occasions the female Mediterranean voices that accompanied Maria del Mar Bonet were Maria Carta and Angelique Ionatos. In October she also took part in the 3rd Festival di u Film di e Culture Mediterranie in the city of Bastia, Corsica.

In November she played alongside the musicians of the Musical Youth of Tunis in Terrassa. On the 8th of the same month she was awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi (Cross of S. George) by the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Catalan Government.

Photographs 1982
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Graphic Documentation
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Identitats TV Catalunya, 1984
Directed by Josep Mª Espinàs
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