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Graciela Carriquí writes vocal chamber music, giving voice to women throughout history whose words have been ignored.
Her most recent composition, funded by a 2023 grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, is excerpted from the trial testimony
of Saint Joan of Arc, in the original 15th century French, and utilizes a large chamber ensemble. In her previous major one she set a
speech to music made in court by Queen Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of King Henry the 8th, in defense of their marriage.
Her next project will be about Saint Edith Stein, the German Jewish philosopher who converted to Catholicism and wrote
to the Pope to plead for the fate of Jewry during the World War II. She also creates jewel-box settings of poems in
small string ensembles, many of them in Spanish.
Born and raised in the United States, Carriquí began classical voice studies at 15. She cut her teeth performing in her father’s jazz band a few years later. At 21 she was tapped to work with salsa greats Willie Colón and Rubén Blades, and spent several years singing in nightclubs
and large arenas like Madison Square Garden in the US and abroad. She was interviewed on the radio and appeared on TV in the
Caribbean and Latin America, and recorded 8 albums, co-producing 2 with Colón, all the while writing and arranging music.
In addition to jazz and salsa, she sang opera in New York City and along the Eastern seaboard with regional companies, and wrote
and performed several cabaret shows in venues in Greenwich Village. She’s served in many other musical capacities, including
musical director in community theater, teaching music to adults,in grammar school music programs, and to preschoolers.
She founded a music education company for young children, Música Para Mí, offering full-immersion Spanish music
classes in New York City, for 17 years. It was the first such business of its kind in the U.S.
Her musical road didn’t stop diverging until she eventually realized the road she was meant to walk was her own. After many years of
singing other people's music while writing her own, she decided to dedicate herself to singing her own, and later solely to writing.
As the poet Antonio Machado said, there is no road, you make the road by walking.
Graciela makes her road by composing.
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