Salmaia
Picap, 1995
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1994 began with a concert in homage to Joan Miró in the Auditorium of Palma. During the first months of 1994 she took the show Viatgera de nits around different cities in the Spanish State, in February in Cantabria, Terrassa and Vigo, among others; in March to Santiago de Compostela where she took part together with Amalia Rodríguez and Uxía in the Dia da Muller (International Women’ Day) in the concert titled “Mulleres a viva voz”. Also in March in Cordoba accompanied by the Orchestra of Cordoba, directed by Leo Browne, and with Feliu Gassull.
In July in the Plaça del Rei in Barcelona she presented the concert shared with the Turkish singer Zülfu Livaneli, who she had met years before in the Festival of the Mediterranean in Palma and with whom she maintained contact until she asked him if she could record his songs. The show was called Merhabà. Both the show Viatgera de Nits in 1993 and Merhabà, in 1994, were the embryo of the next album, Salmaia, recorded during February and March 1995. The musicians accompanying the singer during that tour of Salmaia were Javier Mas, Feliu Gasull, Dimitri Psonis, the new incorporation of Jordi Gaspar on double bass who from then on would be one of the regular collaborating musicians, and Jordi “Xoli” Satorra on percussion. The repertoire of the album are Turkish songs by Livanelli, from Ibiza, Alguer, in Sicilia, Greece and Naples with accompaniment in the songs Sevasdà and Tots dos ens equivocàrem from the Tunisian musicians of the Ensemble de Musique Traditionelle of Tunis led by the already-known collaborator Fethi Zghonda. All these songs form the Mediterranean mosaic that the album Salmaia represents, where Maria del Mar Bonet takes us around a Mediterranean that she describes, sharing the idea of Zulfu Livanelli, as a country.
In June 1994 she took part in the homage to Guillem d’Efak which was held in Palma, with other singers such as Lluís Llach, Marina Rossell, Raimon, Joan Manuel Serrat, Núria Feliu and Quico Pi de la Serra, organised by the Obra Cultural Balear. In September she took part in the concert in homage to Salvat-Papasseit during the Festes de la Mercè in Barcelona along with Teresa Rebull, Guillermina Motta, Josep Tero and Toti Soler, among others. On the 30th of November she took part in the homage to Ovidi Montllor in the Teatre Calderon in Alcoi along with Vicent Torrent and Manolo Millares from Al Tall, Jordi Gil, Tomeu Penya, Marina Rossell, Joan Manuel Serrat, Lluís Miquel, Raimon, Toti Soler and Quico Pi de la Serra, among others.
In September she performed in Alicante, in October in the Expocultura 94 at the Moll de la Fusta in Barcelona, before 12,000 people, and in Sagunto; in October in the Cathedral of Jerez. In November in the benefit concert for the victims of the flooding in Santa Eulàlia de Ronçana in the Palau Olímpic in Granollers; in November in the concert commemorating the 15 years of TVE Balears with Xesc Forteza, Tomeu Penya, UC and Joana Font.
That year, 1995, saw the deaths of two friends and singers, Guillem d’Efak and Ovidi Montllor.
The album Salmaia was issued in many countries: Turkey, Canada, Holland and Germany are some examples. The tour of the album Salmaia was intensive during 1995: for three weeks in January she presented it in the Café Central in Madrid, a small venue that normally hosted small-format jazz concerts and which caused great expectations in the city to be able to hear and see a recital by Maria del Mar Bonet in such an intimate and close setting and where, moreover, she was presenting her new album. In March she performed around Valencia, in Vilareal, Elda, on the 7th in the Teatre Principal in Valencia and in Alcoi, a few months after the death of Ovidi Montllor. Regarding that concert in Alcoi, Maria del Mar Bonet stated that: it is terrible to experience the death of Ovidi from Alcoi and having performed in the same theatre where three months and ten days ago we paid him homage. That day we all knew we were saying farewell in some ways to Ovidi, but we had his strength of mind, above all, with the enthusiasm he had to live, and with the hope you place that death will not take away the people you love.
On the 2nd of April she played in the XII Closure of the Galician Week of Philosophy; in May at the International Festival of Popular and Traditional Music of Vilanova, invited to celebrate 20 years’ collaboration with Al Tall, in Alicante and Berga. On the 22nd of June at the Johnie Musical Festival in the Riviera in Madrid and in the Plaça del Rei in Barcelona where she presented the album to the people of Barcelona; the 13th of July within the cycle Songs of the Mediterranean in Palma, where she played for the third time, presented the album in a full format accompanied by the Tunisian musicians; on the 8th in the Festival of Cordoba, in the Gran Teatro. In September in the Alta veu in Sant Boi she presented Salmaia in a concert shared with Carmen Linares. In November she played in Zaragoza.
In summer 1995 she began the international tour of Salmaia: in August she took part in the Edinburgh Festival on the 25th and 27th, continuing until the summer of the following year, 1996, in Canada, in the prestigious Festivals of Montreal, before around 6,000 people and Quebec. In June she played in Istanbul with great success and before more than 4,000 people in a concert shared with Zulfu Livanelli.
Also in 1996 she presented the new show Solatges, which premiered again in the Café Central in Madrid and would be the new show in the Plaça del Rei, and with which she also toured Catalonia and different spots of the Spanish State such as Valencia and the Balearic Isles, Maó and Eivissa, where she had not sung for more than 10 years.
In July 1996 the exhibition Secreta passió opened in Palma with paintings by Maria del Mar Bonet, Toni Catany and Damià Huguet. On the 11th of October the joint exhibition of paintings by Maria del Mar Bonet and Toni Catany in Manresa opened, titled Identitats. In the same month she received the Ovidi Montllor Prize for the record Salmaia from the Association of Professional Singers and Players in Catalan and on the 31st of December the Medal of the City of Palma.
In November 1996 the Balearic Government proclaimed the song La Balanguera the anthem of Mallorca, with the abstention of the PP.
