The MadWomen

One of the most unique figures in European Classical music. Composer, singer and orchestra conductor, she is the first woman to have her opera, La página en blanco, premiered by the Teatro Real, being as well the librettist and having interpreted one of the main roles, all of which garnered unprecedented national and international attention.

She has performed as a soprano with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Spanish National Orchestra, the Strasburg Symphony, the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the RTVE Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the Royal Symphony Orchestra of Seville, the Castilla y León Symphony, the Symphony Orchestra of Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya, the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu of Barcelona, the Madrid Symphony, the Baroque Orchestra of Limoges, Orchestra of the Avignon Opera, the Portuguese National Symphony Orchestra, the Greek Television Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, under the direction of G. Sinopoli, J. Levine, R. Frübeck de Burgos, A. Tamayo, G. Noseda, E. García Asensio, A. Ros Marbá, J. R. Encinar, Pedro Halffter, Beat Furrer, Kuame Ryan, L. Pfaff, E. P. Salonen and M. Schøntwandt.

As a composer she has premiered more than 90 works and has received comissions from important national and international institutions.

Throughout her career she has received many awards and prizes such as the Ojo Crítico de Música prize (1998), Villa de Madrid prize (2000), Top Woman of the Year 2011 of the Arts of the Glamour Awards, Woman Who Makes a Difference (San Francisco, 2012), Antena de Oro 2014, Puente Iberoamérica 2014 prize, Culture Award from the Autonomous Region of Madrid 2015, Clara Campoamor 2015 special prize, Xishang prize 2016, among others.

Since 2013 she is Ambassador of the International Labour Organization and co-founder, together with Claudio Abbado, José Antonio Abreu and Daniel Baremboim, of the “Music Against Child Labour” initiative.

FORBES magazine situates her among the 20 most influential women in Spain.

ALICIA AZA, practicing lawyer and poet. Her literary work has been included in various international anthologies. In the area of prose fiction, she is the author of numerous short stories which have been published in different literary magazines. Her poetry has been translated into Italian, Serbian, French, Bulgarian, English and Arabic.

ANA BELÉN, Spanish singer and actor, is one of the most distinguished personalities in the Spanish-speaking world of entertainment. Her prolonged artistic trajectory includes more than forty films, about thirty theatrical works and more than thirty-five recordings. She has been twice nominated for the Latin Grammys and won the Latin Grammys Prize for Musical Excellence in 2015 and the Goya Honour Prize in 2017.

ÁNGELA BECERRA is a Colombian author and winner of the Planeta-Casa de América Prize in 2009, the Azorín Prize in 2005 and four Latin Literary Prizes in Chicago. Her works have been translated into more than 23 languages and published in more than 50 countries. Considered the creator of Magic Idealism, she is one of the most-read authors in Spanish and the most-read Colombian author after Gabriel García Márquez.

CONCHA JEREZ is a pioneering Spanish multidisciplinary conceptual artist. One of the important focal points of her work is critical analysis of the media. In 2011 she was awarded the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts, in 2012 the Women in the Visual Arts Prize (MAV) and in 2015 the National Visual Arts Prize.

CRISTINA IGLESIAS is a Spanish sculptor and engraver, winner of the National Visual Arts Prize. She is one of the most internationally recognized Spanish visual artists of the past decades and her works can be found in museums and public spaces around the world.

INÉS PARÍS is a scriptwriter with ample experience in television. She directed her two first films with Daniela Fejerman, for which she was also the screenwriter. Inés París is the first female director of the SGAE Foundation since its inception 20 years ago.

JINETH BEDOYA is a Colombian journalist and activist against gender violence. She founded the campaign “No es hora de callar” (Now is not the time for silence) which protests sexual violence and entreats victims to raise their voices against gender violence. In 2000 she was kidnapped, tortured and raped by paramilitaries when she was reporting from a prison on the outskirts of Bogotá. The date of her kidnap and sexual violation, 25 May, was declared in 2014 by a presidential decree Día Nacional por la Dignidad de las Mujeres Víctimas de Violencia Sexual en el Contexto del Conflicto Armado Interno (National Day for the Dignity of Women Victims of Sexual Violence in the Context of the National Armed Struggle).

LOLA HERRERA, Spanish actor who has dedicated her whole life to the theatre, film and television, has been awarded the Max Prize for the Performing Arts and the Silver Photograms in 2005 and 2006. She has also received the Antena de Oro in 1996 and 2010 and the TP de Oro for Best Actress on two occasions.

MARÍA LAFUENTE, fashion designer from León and Cibeles Fashion Show veteran, can boast of having shown her collections in the most prestigious international fashion shows such as Paris, London, Tokyo, Miami and Sao Paolo. Her collections cater to rebellious and feminine women. She has received various awards among which can be highlighted the 5th International Competition for Young Designers and two awards from the Miami Fashion Week.

MARINA BOLLAÍN is a theatre director and singer with degrees in German philology, singing and opera stage direction. She has sung as guest artist in a number of German theatres such as the Leipzig Opera, the Comic Opera of Berlin and the Volkstheater Rostock. As an actor she has appeared in various cinematographic and television productions en Madrid and Seville. In 1992 she won the Best Actress Prize at the Gijón Film Festival.

MIRIAM DIAZ AROCA is a Madrid resident from Cantabria, actor and television host for Spanish TV. She was awarded the Antena de Oro in 1993 for her participation in Noches de Gala.

NATALIA DICENTA, Spanish actor, singer and presenter.

NURIA FELIÚ, Spanish singer of different popular music genres and actor. With more than a 50-year career behind her, she has won the Popular Culture Prize awarded by the Ministry of Culture, the Cercle Català Medal, the Sant Jordi Film Prize awarded by Spanish National Television and the SGAE Prize for her entire trajectory, among others.

SABINA BERMAN, Mexican poet, author, essayist and dramaturge. She is recognized as the “most prolific, original and daring dramaturge of her generation”. Winner on four occasions of the National Prize for Dramaturgy in Mexico and the Juan Ruiz de Alarcón Prize, as well as the National Journalists Prize in 1999 and 2007.

SARA NAVARRO, footwear designer, she went from working in the family business to creating her own footwear company, within the corporate group, in 1979. In 1997 she created, with her brother Eduardo Navarro, the Ene Woods Company, with which she develops products that go beyond footwear. With Sara World, created in 2000, she entered the world of fashion marketing and promotion. In 2004 she was awarded the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts.

BELINDA WASHINGTON, actor, presenter and singer. With more than 30 years of profession which began in television, thanks to Jesús Hermida, and in theatre, thanks to Arturo Hernández, she has realized more than 20 comedies and musicals. She has appeared in many television series and for some years now has a musical band called “The Washington Band”.

CARME PINÓS, founded her own architecture studio in Barcelona in 1991, and since then has combined her architectural work with teaching in such prestigious international universities as Columbia University, l’Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. She is responsible for famous works such as the Cube Tower of Guadalajara, Mexico, CaixaForum of Zaragoza, the apartment buildings of the New Campus of the University of Economics WU in Vienna, Austria, the Pedestrian Walkway of Petrer and the Hogar School of Morella.

CARMEN POSADAS, is an illustrious author who began writing children’s books and in 1984 won the Ministry of Culture Prize. She is also the author of essays, scriptwriter for film and television, short stories and various novels, among which “Pequeñas Infamias” stands out and won the Planeta Prize in 1998. Her books have been translated into twenty-three languages and published in more than forty countries. The international response, from readers as well as the press, has been excellent.

CECILIA PIÑERO, musicologist specializing in Latin American academic music as well as women and gender in music. A representative of ComuArte in Spain, she is Doctor of Music History and Sciences from the UAM and has an Advanced Degree from the RCSMM. With a degree in Law and a Research Aptitude in Law (UAM), she is a Secondary School Professor of Music.

FUENSANTA NIETO, is a Spanish architect from the generation that starting in the 90s achieved national and international prestige by way of public architecture competitions. Throughout her professional trajectory the Nieto Sobejano studio has received numerous prizes and distinctions in architecture competitions, among which we can highlight the 1st Prize for the National Centre for Visual Arts (Madrid, 2009) and the Alvar Aalto Medal (2015), conferred by the Finnish Museum of Architecture and the Finnish Association of Architects (SAFA).

GISELA VAQUERO, president of Women in Games, an association which promotes and calls attention to women developers of video games. Women in Games ES helps defend the rights of professional women in the industry and encourages their presence in technological areas.

GRACIA QUEREJETA, Spanish filmmaker, without aspirations to act and a degree in Ancient History from the UCM. Full-length films such as “Héctor”, “Siete mesas de billar francés” (Seven French Billiards Tables) and “15 años y un día” (15 Years and One Day) have earned Gracia Querejeta a certain success as director, as well as multiple prizes and awards.

MABEL LOZANO, Spanish model, film and television actor. For her documentary work she has received various awards. She is now in pre-production for “Paso corto, mala leche” (Short Step, Bad Vibes), a documentary narrated in first person by a Spanish pimp, about the cover up of trafficking by the owners of strip joints where sex is sold.

OUKA LEELE, painter, photographer and poet. She has had exhibitions in cities such as Paris, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Cologne, New York, London, Chicago, Kiev, Tel Aviv, Helsinki, Vienna, Athens, Montevideo and Caracas, among others. She has received, among other awards, the ICARO Prize for Visual Arts (1983), the Favourite Daughter Medal from the city of Lyon (2002), the Culture Prize from the Autonomous Region of Madrid (2004), the National Photography Prize (2005), the Silver Medal from the Autonomous Region of Madrid (2012) and the Piedad Isla Photography Prize (2012).

PATRICIA REYES SPÍNDOLA, famous Mexican actor, director and producer whose career spans film, theatre and television. Winner of important international prizes among which are the Premios Ariel, Palma de Oro, Micrófono de Oro, Premios Bravo and the Premios Bafta.

ROSSY DE PALMA, is a Spanish actor living in Paris who became known as the “Almodóvar girl” thanks to that director’s films such as Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) and La flor de mi secreto (The Flower of My Secret). With a multifaceted international career, she is considered one of Jean Paul Gaultier’s muses and in 1992 she appeared in George Michael’s “Too Funky” music video. She has been nominated for the Goya and Feroz awards.

TANIA LEÓN, Cuban conductor and composer, teacher and advisor to artistic organizations. Awarded the New York Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award, she has received honorary doctorates from Colgate University and Oberlin College, and prizes

from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, the Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fund, ASCAP and the Koussevitsky Music Foundation.

TERESA NIETO, choreographer and dancer born in Tangiers whose career is full of awards among which are the MAX Prize 2004 for the Best Female Dance Performer, the National Dance Prize 2004, the Culture Prize for Dance from the Autonomous Region of Madrid 2002 and the ADE Prize 1998 for Best Choreographic Staging.

Teresa Viejo studied journalism and sociology at the Complutense University of Madrid. After working in radio she began a successful career as a presenter on various television channels. She has always combined her work on television with that on radio and in literature. She has published fiction and essays, gaining recognition with the general public thanks to her 2009 novel La memoria del agua (The Memory of Water), which was adapted for a television mini-series. In 2013 she published her second novel, Que el tiempo nos encuentre (May Time Find Us) and in 2015 she had another success with Mientras llueve (While it Rains). She has received, among other prizes, the TV Academy Award and the UNICEF Gold Medal.