Nadia Costa was one of the two artists that performed at the Sala Zitarrosa when I presented my newest book, “Ayer La Lluvia” [Yesterday The Rain].
The book is made up of short stories and a novella that deal with different types of love. So, her music was a perfect match for such a title – all of her compositions are nothing but studies on the vagaries of love and affection.
She opened up the show that night and had her live debut as a solo artist on the prized Sala Zitarrosa, a venue reserved for the highest-ranking of performers only.
This is an excerpt from her live performance. The song is titled “Extrañándote” [Missing You], and it’s one of the compositions of hers that cut the deepest. For me, it works in parallel with “Lejos De Ti” [Far Away From You], a scorching ballad that is highly-likely to be her next single.
The clip was shot by Habemus, a new audiovisual team. The music itself was recorded live by producer/composer Nelson “Cable” Silvera, and our great friend Joaquín Vinci lent us a hand, and gave the sound a little more sheen overall.
El próximo sábado es el lanzamiento de “Ayer La Lluvia”, mi primer libro en prosa. Lo presento en un festival de música y literatura, junto a artistas jóvenes que he conocido desde que nació este blog, y gracias a sitios como Cooltivarte.com y ElDiario.com.uy.
Al igual que “Once” (2009) y “Ten” (2010), este libro es publicado por Rumbo Editorial.
Si visitan esta página con frecuencia, saben el protagonismo que tiene la música en la historia de mi vida. Todo lo que me da, y también todo lo que me quita. Y las canciones de quienes participan en estos eventos encarnan todas esas facetas de satisfacción y de pérdida; estos artistas conviven con los mismos sueños y temporales que yo veo cada día cuando cierro los ojos y trato de decirme que no todo está dicho ni escrito.
Ahora pienso en ellos, y parezco darme cuenta de que la misma motivación nos conduce por el camino de la creación.
Queremos aprender a decirle “te necesito” a las personas que realmente nos importan cuando todo cambia demasiado como para poder seguir cambiando.
“Ayer La Lluvia” tiene dos partes: una primera sección que comprende once micro-cuentos, y una segunda parte integrada por una novela corta. Todos los textos tratan sobre formas de amor diferentes. En general, el libro está enfocado a un público juvenil.
El primer evento es este sábado a las 19:00. Tiene lugar en la Sala Mario Benedetti de la Casa del Autor (AGADU), donde estaré presentando el libro junto a La Medio Siglo.
Fueron la banda más joven que reseñé en MusicKO, tienen un entusiasmo hercúleo, y una devoción irrefrenable. Y además, fueron quienes le dieron el puntapié inicial a toda esta serie de eventos, Paul Higgs (su cantante) me inspiró a llevar a cabo estas actividades.
Y como en todas las presentaciones, la poeta Déborah Eguren será la responsable de reproducir en vivo y en directo diversos textos y pasajes del libro, junto Mauricio Trimani en guitarra. Continue reading →
(English version of an article first published on Cooltivarte.com. You can read the original post here)
A young Uruguayan singer and composer, Nadia Costa started studying music formally in 2004. That year, she began learning how to read and write music, and how to play the guitar. She started penning her own compositions soon afterwards, writing a series of ballads and pop rock numbers (the genre she relates the most to).
By now, she has already been a member of several bands such as Sadirban (2005), Sueños (2009) and El Cardenal Sebastián (2010). With these bands, she’s taken to the stages of venues like El Tartamudo, Apartado Bar, Bluzz Bar and La Comuna. And she’s also played the Hotel Sheraton, and many shopping centers in the country. In early 2012 she was chosen as a contralto singer for the choir Coro Fermata.
Nowadays, Nadia Costa is recording her first solo album. This will include 13 original compositions, and this interview is a way to bring you closer both to that specific project, and to Nadia herself.
Q: Tell us a little about who you are and what you do, so that people who are completely new to you can have an idea what to expect from your art.
My name is Nadia Costa. I’m a musician, singer and composer. I’m a girl that’s full of dreams, eager to share my songs with the world, and to do what I love most of all: to sing, and to be on a stage, giving my heart to people.
Q: How old were you when you first started writing songs?
A: It’s a bit crazy, you know, because when I was a kid I didn’t play “normal” games – I used to pretend I was a singer, and when I was 7 I “wrote” my first “song”. And that was the coolest thing in the world. But writing songs was just a game then. It all changed when I was about 15 (when I had gone through all the different experiences associated with growing up) that I started writing in a more heartfelt and thorough way. By then, I had begun studying guitar, and I started having more musical ideas. It was then that I came to realize my first song wasn’t the one I had written when I was 7. No, the ones I began penning when I was 15 made me become aware that I truly wanted to devote my life to music.
Q: What’s your creative process like? How do you write a song?
A: Personally, what I aim to do is to touch people’s hearts, to reach out to others in a special way. I want people to take my lyrics to heart, and to be moved by my songs’ melodies. When I write, all that I want is to come up with a phrase, a note or a melody that would be of use to others. I want to make them ponder on anything that’s bringing them down, so that they can overcome such difficulties. That’s the kind of thing I find truly fulfilling.
Q: Which national and international musicians do you look up to?
A: I’m keen on many international artists, for the fact that I like to dip my feet everywhere, and learn a little from everything. Stevie Wonder is someone I’m really fond of. I’m taken by the sonority of his voice and the way in which he sings, that man will never cease to amaze me.
John Mayer is also someone I hold in very high esteem. He’s got a very distinctive way of writing, and I love his musical style, the romantic rock he plays.
Then, Shania Twain and Taylor Swift are two female artists I really admire. I love the country pop they play, they’ve both got lyrics which tell stories that you don’t know how will end until the very last verse. As a writer, these are the kind of lyrics that turn me on.
Yet, my biggest musical reference is Luis Fonsi. He’s a complete artist. He’s got just everything: technique, feeling, emotion, humility and a very characteristic voice – it can be both sweet and aggressive.
And as far as Uruguay is concerned, Rada is a true touching stone for everybody, and someone I had the pleasure of meeting in person. Other artists that I listen to include Fernando Cabrera, Alfredo Zitarrosa, No Te Va Gustar… these are just a couple. There are actually many artists that I listen to and which captivate me. I’m very open-minded in that sense. I listen to pretty much everything.
Q: You’re recording you first album, what’s the experience been like so far?
A: I’m bringing all of my illusions into that process. I’m enjoying each and every step of it, I’m trying to enjoy it to the full. It’s a lengthy process, and it’s easy to get anxious along the way. But I’m doing my best to take it calmly. I want the album to shape itself in the way it should, these things take time. And I want everything to turn out as it should, I’m too much of a perfectionist (hehehe). Ideally, the album should be out in early 2014. And live dates should start being added soon. Continue reading →
El Cardenal Sebastián Are Carolina Falcon (Vocals) Diego Centurion (Guitar & Backing Vocals), Nadia Costa (Guitar & Backing Vocals) and Juan Pablo Pola (Bass, Keyboards & SFX).
I have in front of me the liner notes that Bill Flanagan penned for Jeff Buckley’s posthumous release, “(Sketches For) My Sweetheart The Drunk”. There, at the end of the first paragraph (the one that invariably holds the deepest poignancy as it has to introduce the subject, and at the same time summarize its blazing successes without overemphasizing the tragedy that truncated his life) I find the one remark that lets me describe this independent Uruguayan band after having lived with its music for the last two weeks.
When explaining Buckley’s reluctance to issue the disc he had recorded with the mythical Tom Verlaine some time before his untimely passing, Flanagan justifies the decision by describing Jeff’s approach to his music (and to his own life) as a process where the actual journey was emphasized over the act of arriving.
That is exactly the impression I have after listening to the music put forth by this band from Canelones. I don’t necessarily think that the songs they have recorded for their first album (named “De La Locura”; it is produced and sold by the band) can be termed a point of arrival in any sense. The music (thankfully) sounds more like a start to me, and that is always commendable when it boils to the first material that any band is releasing. If anything, El Cardenal Sebastián’s music is like a deliberately leveled journey towards an horizon that doesn’t seem that far out of reach. Yet, the horizon that is aimed for is actually an undulating one which makes it hard to discern where it is that the ground ends and the sky commences. The purpose of the actual journey turns into a much trickier one. What lies on one side and what lies on the other? That is the basic question that the band poses. Both the music and the lyrics transmit that sense of a procession towards something which is fated to be in two places at the same time, for the simple reason that, well, such is life. And whatever shortcomings their music might have, you can’t veto it on grounds of failing to express vitality.
In “Detras De Su Piel” [Behind His Skin], singer Carolina Falcón announces “Voy cruzando la ciudad que se enciende” [I go through the city as it lights up], and later in the same song the search for “las semillas de lo incierto” [the seeds of uncertainty] is presented as the one and only valid pursuit. Yet, the song poses the insoluble dilemma of having to root yourself in order to let life germinate and spread from what was once you. That dilemma (the conflict between what one is and one wants to become, that duality again) is precisely what lies at the heart of the song, and of the repertory that the band has unleashed so far.
Another song (De La Locura) includes the lines “Una vez hice el intento de escribirle al sol/quizá bajo los efectos de una pasajera ilusión” [I once tried to write to the sun/maybe under the influence of a fleeting illusion]. And this explicit study of a link between the real world and an illusory state is further developed later on, in the lyrics “Yo viajé por un momento en otra realidad/fue como sentir tus dedos/besando mi tranquilidad” [I traveled for a little while through another reality/it was like feeling your fingers/kissing my tranquility]. Continue reading →
