The naked voice”, as the singer María Berasarte is described abroad, is the Basque artist with the greatest international impact at the present time. María lives in a constant state of change, development, and above all, emotion through unexpected and elegant simplicity. She is torn apart and dazzles in a minimalistic way with an enveloping and spellbinding staging. She has the “naked” voice. Naked is an adjective because her voice has no artifice or ornament, it is pure and essential, clear and transparent... But also naked as a verb, because anyone who listens to her is laid bare, stripped of any barriers or clothing, she gets under the skin and touches the soul like few can; she shakes it, sways it, and rocks it. A powerful weapon of sound that makes her the Basque artist with the greatest international impact at the present time. Her voice ignores boundaries and also crosses them.
Her passion for Portugal is well-known, she devoted her first album “Todas las horas son viejas” (Universal) to the Lisbon style of singing, and it was described by Portuguese critics as the best fado album recorded by a foreign voice. She was invited by none other than Carlos do Carmo, a living legend of fado, winner of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award, to the concert celebrating his 45th anniversary on stages around the world. This marked her debut in the neighbouring country, alongside the great fado singer, with music from Portugal and in front of 12,000 people. The artist highlights that her following solo album “Súbita” is a deep evocation of her childhood and youth, her roots, and her hometown San Sebastián, all alongside encounters with authors, musicians, and producers during the 14 years she lived in Madrid. It is about returning to the essence, the earth, “recognising that the music is always above the performer.” María shares the fruits of an innovative project that touches the deepest part of our soul. If she sings about the sorrows of love, the ocean, and the difficulty of existing, she does so with an exceptional emotional power. Shaping her voice as she wants, playing with silences.
In her last work released in October 2018, “DELIRIO”, a voice and piano duet with the Cuban pianist Pepe Rivero, María manages to subdue the audience and put them in a state of hypnosis in which the spectator feels that they are undertaking a musical journey alongside her and Pepe Rivero. She boasts a career full of intense collaborations with artists from different universes who converge in a single world: that of María Berasarte. From the world of flamenco, Niño Josele, Jose Luis Montón, and Javier Limón; from other musical traditions, Ara Malikian, Carlos Núñez, the Brazilian Edson Cordeiro, the Italians Gianmaria Testa, and Gabriele Mirabassi and the Mozambican Stewart Sukuma, among many others. All of this has given rise to two Portuguese projects, Aduf and Quintet Lisboa, of which Berasarte is part.
She has appeared in the same shows as Paco de Lucía, Dulce Pontes, Cristina Branco and Carminho, Rodrigo Leão and Carlos do Carmo. She eschews the pretentious, overproduction, and showiness in order to focus on what is essential, clean notes, a voice that can almost be touched, the whisper. She has participated in different festivals such as Rock in Rio Lisbon 2004, the Music Festival in Corfu 2005 (Greece), the Music Coast Festival in Lanzarote 2006, the Flamenco Biennial in Sevilla 2006, the Flamenco Festival in Jerez 2008, the World Music Festival in Ponte da Barca 2011 (Portugal), the World Music Festival in Sines 2011 (Portugal), the Alamar Festival in Almeria 2011, the Folk Festival at Getxo Folk 2011, the Three Cultures Festival in Murcia 2012, Badasom 2013, sharing the stage with maestro Paco de Lucía in one of his last concerts, Macau Festival 2013, Au fil des voix in Vaison la Romaine 1013 (France), Au fil des voix in París 2014, the Music and Dance Festival in Granada 2014, the International Music, Theatre and Dance Festival in Sibiu 2015 and Mawazine (Rabat) 2015, Ellas Crean (Madrid) 2016, Hong Kong Arts Festival 2017 (China). France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Romania, Morocco, Greece, China, Mozambique, England, and Portugal are some of the countries where the Basque artist has displayed her naked and melancholic voice, winning over audiences and critics.
In spring 2017 she travelled to Hong Kong to present her latest album at the Hong Kong Arts Festival. She continued in the United States and Canada on a tour of 14 concerts as the special guest of the great Galician artist Carlos Núñez. In 2018 she once again presented the Festival Mawazine, this time accompanied by the instrumentalist trio LST, Lisboa String Trio, with whom she appeared on other stages such as the International Festival of Sacred Art in Madrid. In 2020 she launched a new project “La Tierra y el Camino” or “Lurra eta Bidea”, in which she undertakes an intense stop to consider her Basque roots exploring them in sound and in the pursuit of new forms of popular expression. In 2021 she appeared under the flagship of Patrimonio National (National Heritage) with “Fado & Chanson, en femenino” (“Fado & Chanson, by women”), an ode to the voices that inspired both genres. She has made her debut at different Royal Palaces in Spain such as that of Madrid, La Granja, and Aranjuez; In 2022 she appeared at Teatro Mira in Pozuelo, at the Voices with Soul Series in Parla and she will perform in December at the Teatro Salón Cervantes in Alcalá de Henares.