Mónica Marziota Valdés

Cuban-Italian soprano and singer-songwriter, graduate of the Cuban System of Art Schools.

Mónica is a graduate of the Cuban Amadeo Roldán Conservatory and holds a superior degree in the specialty of Lyric Singing from the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome. She was awarded in August 2017 with the Lunezia International Latin World prize, becoming the first member of the Cuban Institute of Music's catalog to receive this recognition.

She has performed in Havana as an invited lyric singer at the Camerata Romeu End of Season concert at the Minor Basilica of the Convent of San Francisco de Asís. She sings in several languages and ventures into different musical genres. She has taken her music to Canada, Nigeria, Spain, France and Austria, in addition to Italy and Cuba.

She began at age six at the 'Alejandro García Caturla' Music Conservatory. At the Conservatory she spent three years at the elementary level. The following four years on the piano instrument she received at the Manuel Saumell school.

"At the 'Amadeo Roldán' she completed the upper middle level, where she studied music theory and choral direction. Then she received her superior level in Italy, part at the 'G. Briccialdi' Higher Institute of Musical Studies and another part at the prestigious 'Santa Cecilia' Conservatory in Rome".

Awards
At just 32 years old, Cuban-Italian singer Mónica Marziota became the first member of the Cuban Institute of Music's catalog to receive the Lunezia international Latin world award, created in 1996 to honor the best Italian song lyrics for their literary musical value and awarded to musicians of the caliber of Andrea Bocelli, Laura Pausini, among others.

Mónica spoke very early and sang shortly after. One day her mother came to pick her up from the Children's Circle and they told her: "Bring a note from the mother to take her away". "I am the mother," she answered. "It's just that with my appearance… almost no one believed that little blonde girl was my daughter". Her mother is mulata. Moreover, from Havana, daughter of one of the musicians from the golden generation of the Buena Vista Social Club and the oldest of five siblings who studied music by vocation, at the wish of the father, and also of the mother, a natural soprano without professional training.

In the early 90s, during the special period, Carmen and Monica traveled about 15 kilometers each day from Old Havana to the Alejandro García Caturla Music Conservatory, and later to the Manuel Saumell, quite an effort in those years of hardship. "I didn't suffer during the special period, I was very small and was not aware of what was happening. I also don't think it affected my home much, there weren't even blackouts here, because the electricity in Old Havana is underground. I also had no interest in material things. My mom, on each birthday month, gave me a poem, a book or a song, that's what was important to me," Mónica has said.

After graduating from the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory at age 17, Monica jumped to Toronto to study jazz singing at the Royal Conservatory. Two years later, to Rome, where she graduated in Lyric Singing in 2013, at the superior level of the Santa Cecilia Conservatory.

"Moving abroad to study was not a decision for my whole life, neither at that moment, nor now. Studying in Canada was a different experience from Cuba. It gave me a vision of how music is made in another place and helped me with discipline. They have an Anglo-Saxon mentality and that imposes rigor. I was very interested in learning musical theater, which I later studied in Rome".

In Cuba, Monica made her debut in 2008, as a guest at a concert by trumpeter Yasek Manzano, at the Theater of the Museum of Fine Arts. From then on, her performances on the Island have not been sparse, but those in November 2019 were special.

At the Contemporary Music Festival Monica performed Two Poems by Lorca, set to music by Guido López Gavilán and Five Black Songs, by Xavier Montsalvatge. Along with her exquisite and powerful voice, a restrained theatricality and the flight of her long and expressive arms.

"Stage performance is part of my studies, but the idea of using my arms was born naturally. I'm not thinking about what I'm going to do with them, I just draw what I sing. A teacher told me: 'You have to find a center, where you feel comfortable'. My center is feeling that I'm floating on stage and that the voice floats with me and that's when I need to move my arms. I've always been a very physical person. I have to move, touch, I can't sing stiffly. I don't move around much, but I move with my arms".

Monica's musical career has not been meteoric. I feel that she has dedicated much time to her training and to defining her objectives. She also took the time to meditate on the themes that follow.

"I have dedicated time to study and it will always seem like too little to me. I have taken time to discover, to know, to study, and at the same time, to discover myself, to know myself, to study myself. For me, reflection and searching are fundamental. I don't live time as an enemy. I have enjoyed, with ups and downs, taking the necessary time to be who I am today, and I will continue respecting the time it will take me to become the person and artist that I would like to embrace tomorrow.