Beatriz Márquez Castro

Singer, composer, and pianist. Exponent of romantic song, feeling, and bolero, gracefully venturing into these genres, she has performed works by prolific authors such as Marta Valdés, Juanito Márquez, and Silvio Rodríguez.

Beatriz is one of the greatest Cuban voices of all time. With more than half a century of artistic life, she has been a melodious constant on the Island's great stages, which she has moved with her unique timbre.

In the Cuban musical sphere, Beatriz Márquez has been known as La Musicalísima for her great vocal abilities. Her father was the distinguished composer and guitarist René Márquez, so from a very young age she was surrounded by a musical environment that defined her vocation. From the age of nine she studied piano. Later she studied at the National School of Art.

Initially Beatriz was part of a musical group, but later became a soloist. Various musical creations have become popular through her voice. Beatriz Márquez has performed in different countries and has obtained important awards and recognition for her work.

Her mezzo-soprano range has made possible her appreciated "descents" to lower tones, as well as her unexpected, and no less appreciated, "ascents" to much higher registers, without losing her defining style, very appropriate for song and bolero, genres in which she has remained one of their main cultivators in Cuba. Known as La Musicalísima.

Beatriz Márquez is not a chance occurrence: certainly her innate talent and that voice with which she achieves whatever she proposes—and achieves it brilliantly!—became the cornerstone of what came after, but alongside these qualities there is a family environment deeply linked to art to which is added her devotion since childhood. She began her artistic career in 1968.

At the end of the 1960s she joined Los Barbas. In that same period she sang as a duet with Miguel Chávez, with whom she gained great popularity.

In 1971, with the show Ritmos de Cuba, she visited six socialist countries; upon her return, she offered her first recital at the Amadeo Roldán Theater (she repeated it in 1974); in 1973 she participates as a guest at the Orfeo de Oro Festival, held in Bulgaria; in 1973, she tours Romania, and in 1975 obtains her first major triumph outside Cuba with her participation in the Sopot Festival, and later becomes part of the review Otoño Dorado in the Soviet Union.

In 1976 she travels to the People's Republic of Angola with Elio Revé's orchestra, and from there she goes to Venezuela to participate in the Festival de la Divina Pastora in Venezuela.

Referring to her records, Frank Padrón expresses: "In six records [...] she has demonstrated her coherent professional development, her lines and nuances within the so-called 'romantic song', her different authors—which in the latest samples frequently include her own compositions—the evolving orchestral conception, enriched with new sonorities and her own interpretive maturity. While not always the repertoire has been optimal, the compositions have shown evident disparities, nor do all records present the same quality, it must be recognized in Beatriz Márquez a solid discographic achievement."

She has participated in several Adolfo Guzmán competitions in Cuban Music, is a singer endowed with great faculties, absolute pitch, and a good sense of interpretation. She currently continues her artistic career. Beatriz Márquez's career as a singer has always been linked to the Adolfo Guzmán Competition, first as a performer and later as a jury member. Many remember, in particular, the 1980 edition, when the singer performed the ballad "Amar, vivir" by Richard Egües and the audience, without letting her finish, rose from their seats to applaud her deafeningly.

She studied at the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory with Manuel Ochoa and Carmen Collado, and completed her studies (choral direction) at the National School of Art with Guatemalan professor Oscar Vargas Romero.

One of the best-known facets of Beatriz Márquez was the friendship and working relationship she maintained for many years with Juan Almeida Bosque, one of the historical commanders of the Cuban Revolution who was also a prolific composer (he wrote more than 300 songs).

As the singer has recounted, they met when she was just beginning her artistic career: Almeida approached her during a performance in the city of Santiago de Cuba to show her his work, as he believed the young woman's style was suited to his songs. From that first meeting and the many that followed would come the LP that Beatriz Márquez recorded with his songs in 1970 and which achieved great popularity in Cuba.

Works
Upon Seeing You
Someone Like You Only
I Search Again for My Feeling
Say Goodbye to All My Existence
That Night I Had a Dream
Our Sky
Without Me, How Are You Doing

Among the countless awards that La Musicalísima Beatriz Márquez has received throughout her career, the National Music Prize stands out, which was presented to her in 2015 for her lifetime achievement, and the Grand Cubadisco Prize, which she won in 2018 for her recording "Libre de Pecado", demonstrating that, despite her advanced age, her voice continues as strong as ever.