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Gwyneth Paltrow’s Love Affair with Spain

febrero 14th, 2012 | Posted by Iberostar Hotels & Resorts in Local Characters - (0 Comments)

With its romantic Mediterranean flair, rich cuisine and millennia-old history, Spain has captured the hearts of many – including world-famous Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow. There’s no denying that the 36-year-old celebrity has had a long love affair with Spain: she speaks almost perfect Spanish with an Iberian accent, she’s worked closely with several Spanish directors and she’s even hosted her own culinary show based in Spain.

Paltrow Hails Spain as Her Second Home

“Spain changed my life,” Gwyneth said in an interview with Britain’s Daily Mail. “When I was 15, I went to a small town outside Talavera de la Reina and I had the most wonderful experience. It really changed my life,” Paltrow said. She’d spent a year as an exchange student in the little pueblo and fell completely in love with the country. To the Oscar-winning actress, Spain is her second home – despite her success, she still visits at least once a year and remains close to her host family back in Spain.

Paltrow especially loves the Spanish lifestyle: “They seem to enjoy life a little bit more. They aren’t running around as much as in New York. They enjoy time with the family. They don’t always have their Blackberries on.”

Spanish Cuisine Top on the List

In 2007, Paltrow filmed a 13-part TV series, Spain…on the Road Again with renowned Spanish chef Mario Batali, New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman and Spanish actress Claudia Bassols. The series gave viewers a closer look at Spain’s cuisine, wine, culture and nightlife, as the four celebrities cruised around Spain in a fleet of Mercedes, sampling the best fare in the country.

So what’s a longtime vegetarian like Paltrow doing in a country that’s big on meat? Paltrow said she likes rice dishes and seafood and indeed, there’s rarely a shortage of good crustaceans in this Mediterranean country.

If you’ve always been curious about Spanish food, be sure to catch the show as they showcase the unique gastronomy in almost every corner of Spain – from cooking seafood paella in its birthplace Valencia, to savoring local ensaimadas on the island of Mallorca to sampling pintxos in San Sebastián and stewing the legendary cocido madrileño in the country’s capital. And if you’re wondering what’s so special about Spain that has Hollywood stars going gaga for it, then be sure to head there for a visit.
Photo | Nellie Huang

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Introducing the World to Cuban Music: A Tribute to Celia Cruz

febrero 8th, 2012 | Posted by Iberostar Hotels & Resorts in Local Characters - (0 Comments)

“Ay, no hay que llorar
Que la vida es un carnaval
y es más bello vivir cantando…”

In this, one of her signature songs, the late Celia Cruz sang “No need to cry – life is a carnival, and it’s always more beautiful to live singing.”  It is this positive philosophy in life that won her millions of fans from all over – earning her the title as the most successful and beloved salsa performer of the 20th century. It is also her infectious music and irresistible rhythms that make it all but impossible to keep your feet from tapping – or your hips from wiggling – when you listen to the Queen of Salsa.

Putting Cuba on the Map

With her explosive voice and equally vivacious personality, Cruz earned 23 gold albums and over 100 recognitions and Grammy awards. It was shewho introduced the world to salsa music, causing a wave of salsa trends to hit shores well beyond the Hispanic world. Billboard magazine once wrote in an article, “Cruz is indisputably the best known and most influential female figure in the history of Cuban music.”

Cruz spent her childhood and youth in Havana, Cuba – the birthplace of salsa. While growing up in the diverse Cuban musical climate of the 1930s, Cruz was influenced by many musicians along the lights of Pablo Quevedo, Paulina Álvarez, Abelardo Barroso, and Arcaño y sus Maravillas. But she quickly developed her own voice and style, creating music that’s distinctive and uniquely hers.

Cuban Legacy

Cruz started singing in cabarets as a teenager and then moved on to performing in a popular program on Havana’s Radio García-Serra. Her shot at fame came when she replaced the lead singer of a well-known Cuban orchestra, Sonora Matancera. She spent the next 15 years with them, gaining fame all over Latin America, during which she developed a trademark shout, greeting her audience with a loud “azúcar!” (sugar) at each show.

Though Cruz left Cuba for the United States in 1959 and spent the rest of her life there, her heart always belonged in Cuba. Throughout her 50-year singing career, she strongly supported educational, health and cultural issues in Cuba, as well as other Hispanic communities. She also founded the Celia Cruz Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising funds for underprivileged students wishing to study music. Celia left us in 2003, but her legacy will clearly be kept alive for a long time.

Photo | Phillip Pessar

 

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The World’s Most Famous Dominican: Oscar de la Renta

enero 17th, 2012 | Posted by Iberostar Hotels & Resorts in Local Characters - (0 Comments)

A household name among the world’s fashion-conscious and arguably the planet’s best known Dominican (baseball stars notwithstanding – after all, America’s pastime is not so hot in Paris, Milan, and Dubai), Óscar de la Renta was born in Santo Domingo in 1932 to a Dominican mother and a Puerto Rican father. At 18, the budding artist moved to Spain to study painting, but promptly shifted into fashion, starting out with Balenciaga in Madrid, then moving on to Lanvin in Paris and Elizabeth Arden in New York before launching his own label in 1965. He was a nightlife fixture during the scandalous 70s but has proved to be a durable couture icon, expanding successfully into home furnishings, fragrances, and other lifestyle products. Unintentionally perhaps, he also expanded the pop lexicon with the popular phrase “fashion victim,” first coined one night at Manhattan’s La Caravelle while ogling some egregiously dressed hipsters.

De la Renta’s work is still plenty popular among the rich and famous (recently including Jessica Biel, Cameron Diaz – and of course Chelsea Clinton famously wore him during her “wedding of the century”). When De la Renta’s fall 2011 collection debuted during the last New York Fashion Week, critics were mighty complimentary of his “swoon-worthy” evening gowns and the accessible opulence of the collection in general.

For all the impact De la Renta has had over the years in North America, Europe, and beyond, he remains very attached to and involved with his home country, keeping a home in Punta Cana and financially supporting various projects including schools for poor children, day-care centers, orphanages, education for the handicapped, and a foundation to benefit communities in the DR’s particularly depressed southwest. He is also involved in the School of Design at Altos de Chavón, the exquisite hilltop Mediterranean-style village overlooking the Chavón River, which is truly one of the Dominican Republic‘s premier sights. The man clearly has a lot going on, and shows no signs of slowing down – meaning this Dominican national treasure should be dressing the elegant and helping the unfortunate for years to come.

Image | iStockPhoto

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Cesária Évora, Cape Verde’s Immortal Gift to World Music

diciembre 20th, 2011 | Posted by Iberostar Hotels & Resorts in Snapshots - (1 Comments)

Not too many people know much about (or have even heard of) the tiny, 10-island West African country of Cape Verde (home to Iberostar Club Boa Vista, on Boavista island). But even though relatively few actually understood her song lyrics, plenty in Europe, Africa, and the rest of the world certainly knew and loved its most famous native daughter, a soulful singer whom we lost on December 17 at age 70.

Like one of my favorite U.S. jazz icons, Alberta Hunter, Cesária Évora started her career young and at one point left music, only to stage a spectacular comeback, in Évora’s case starting with a hit album in France, La diva aux pieds nus (“The Barefoot Diva”; she always sang barefoot because she said it was more comfortable). She won a Grammy nomination for 1995’s Cesária, and international fame didn’t lag far behind; her album Voz d’Amor (Voice of Love) later won her a world music Grammy in 2004. Évora’s health started declining in 2010, and in September 2011 she finally retired from her beloved music.

But the lady has left behind a gorgeous legacy of more than 20 studio, live, and remixed albums (including Club Sodade, a cool bunch of dance-club remix tracks), that have taught the world about Cape Verde’s distinctive national music, called morna. Like Portugal’s fado, it’s usually sung in a minor key and deals with loss, regret, and longing. As executed by Évora, it’s rich and jazzy, with lush arrangements and hints of blues and bossa nova. The language is crioulo, an Afro-Portuguese sprinkled with local African languages like Wolof and Fulani. Her success – and the video below, one of her better-known songs, “Sodade” (“Longing”) – prove that you don’t need to understand the words to be moved by the music and that evanescent voice. Still, for your delight, here are the simple yet powerful lyrics:

Quem mostra’ bo ess caminho longe?
Who will show you that long road?

Quem mostra’ bo ess caminho longe?
Who will show you that long road?

Ess caminho pa São Tomé
That road to São Tomé

Sodade sodade
The longing, the longing

Sodade
The longing

Dess nha terra São Nicolau
For this land of mine, São Nicolau

Si bo ‘screve me ’m ta ‘screve be
If you write to me I’ll write back to you

Si bo ‘squece me ’m ta ‘squece be
If you forget me I’ll forget you

Até dia qui bo voltà
Until the day you return

Sodade sodade
The longing, the longing

Sodade
The longing

Dess nha terra São Nicolau
For this land of mine, São Nicolau

Muito obrigado (thank you so much), Cesária. Today, December 20th, may be your funeral; but your music will always live in our hearts. Rest in peace.

Photo | Bruno Bollaert

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