NAU NUA: MIREIA IZQUIERDO

Verses behind the clouds

I still remember the first time I saw the film Det sjunde inseglet/The seventh seal directed by Ingmar Bergman in 1957. In the final scene, Death takes people to the afterlife in a beautiful dance that is lost in the horizon. That scene came again to me during the concert of the Mireia Izquierdo Quartet at Madujazz in Manresa, in this case, not as a door to the afterlife but to the life itself. It was a passionate dance in which Tom Waits, Joan Manuel Serrat, Consuelo Velázquez, Billie Holiday, Charles Chaplin, Joni Mitchell and Silvio Rodríguez appeared in a new way thanks to the splendid voice of Mireia Izquierdo and it reminded me life is really a gift.

Mireia Izquierdo is a singer, songwriter and actress born in Manresa and based in Barcelona. Under the name of Mireia Izquierdo & Art’n’Sís, she released an EP in 2011 entitled Viviendo del arte/ Living off art including a cover of the classic Put the blame on Mame by Allan Roberts and Doris Fisher from the movie Gilda (1946), a cover of the bolero Verdad amarga written by Consuelo Velázquez, Smile based on the instrumental composed by Charles Chaplin for his 1936 film Modern Times, the major classic by George Gershwin Summertime, and three own songs: Llevan esas gafas a mi amor, Estamos solas Billie y yo and El perro de Goya. All performances showed us arrangements rich in nuances and a voice of wide of enthusiasm, a gate of a sensitivity from which simmered songs are born and leaves us a sediment to savour with time.

For the concert, Mireia Izquierdo presented the most of the songs of her debut EP and some of the new ones to be included in her upcoming album to be released along 2013, like her own Cien golpes and Mi realidad, and covers of the songs Temptation by Tom Waits and Aquellas pequeñas cosas by Joan Manuel Serrat. The members of the band were Yeray Hernández (guitar), who gave us extraordinary solos, Matías Míguez (electric bass) and Ramón Díaz (drums), all they excellent musicians. Their walk along jazz, reggae, bolero and a reminiscence of pop thanks to the Oasis theme Wonderwall drew a reality full of love for art.

Text by Juan Carlos Romero

Mireia Izquierdo website www.mireiasanizqui.wix.com/mireia-izquierdo-san