Bárbara Martínez grew up performing in New York City. Originally from Venezuela, she is the grand-niece of famed Argentine tango singer Libertad Lamarque. For more than 20 years she has worked as a dancer and singer with numerous flamenco dance companies and world music ensembles, and danced with the Metropolitan Opera, where she also sang as a child. In 2010, Bárbara performed at Carnegie Hall/Weill in a solo concert to a sold out house.
She appears in the documentary “Sobre Las Olas – A Story of Flamenco in the U.S.” by Carolina Loyola-Garcia and the photography exhibit entitled “100 Years of Flamenco in New York” at the NY Performing Arts Library. She is a Brown graduate and is currently pursuing a Masters at Berklee College of Music. Bárbara teaches music at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. One of the biggest joys of her career has been launching the ALBA Musik project with guitarist Albert Alabedra, co-composing songs that pull from a lifetime of work in flamenco and a rich variety of other musical styles.
A native of Barcelona, Spain, Albert Alabedra has self-taught guitar since the age of 14. Albert was exposed to flamenco at an early age, with a mother from Córdoba and grandparents from Sevilla, the southern Spanish province of Andalucía where flamenco originated. In addition to the traditional flamenco, popular throughout Spain, Albert grew up with the global influences characteristic of cosmopolitan Barcelona, especially the rumba Catalana.
Later formally trained in classical and electric guitar and then in jazz and flamenco, Albert has used his versatile repertoire to create his own unique “fusion” style. His musical career consists of performances with various pop, rock, jazz, funk, acoustic, and flamenco bands throughout Spain and New York. Everything changed when we had the idea to write music with Bárbara Martínez, resulting in the birth of ALBA Musik!