“If the singer is silenced, the rose dies. And what is the use of the rose without the song…!”

This album, which was born first, as the most cherished things are gestated, in the warmth of the heart and of encounters, is our tribute to that singer who gifted us with her voice so many other singers and poets; who chose to keep singing and resurrecting despite so many daily deaths: Mercedes Sosa.

Singer, woman, mother, Argentine and Latin American: you not only filled our souls with music; above all, you left us a way of understanding the song as a profound and inseparable companion of our history, as a legacy of committed and forceful love.

Because I believe more firmly every day that “the song has meaning”; because I want to sing what these songs that she knew how to cradle and proclaim have taught me; because I want to tell them as I have understood them, I offer “A una Cantora” (To a Singer) as gratitude to Mercedes Sosa and to the singers and poets whose words found warmth and life under the shelter of her voice.

Patricia Vlieg

“Viento Nómade” (Nomadic Wind)

Sensibility that does not understand kilometers and that tirelessly traverses all of the Americas to settle in the heart. Her brilliant voice and that delicious way of interpreting make Patricia Elena Vlieg an indispensable artist. She moves, she shakes… A singer. To let oneself be carried away by the very beauty, to its most luminous corners, often unfathomable spaces, which Patricia Elena Vlieg seems to know from top to bottom, and they become her voice, and they become her song… There, in the beauty, Patricia Elena constructs enchanted worlds, where music is sovereign and imposes its reign of emotions, of poetry.

Discovering Patricia Elena is a step that one should not fail to take on the path to happiness.

“Clarín”

Vlieg does not fear comparisons between her versions and those sung by Mercedes Sosa. “I don’t think about it. These songs have been a part of my life, and my only intention is to remember her and thank her for everything she gave me. She made me know poets, she taught me that things are not built in a day, but in a process. And that it is blessed who can sing their life, with all the light and darkness, and not just a moment of their life.”

“El Amante”

There should be no precedent of a Panamanian singer who has set out to interpret pieces from the repertoire of a great Argentine performer. Well, this is the case of Patricia Elena Vlieg, who has decided in this CD to pay tribute to the great Mercedes Sosa by tackling a series of pieces that cover different aspects of her repertoire. Vlieg is a singer endowed with a very good voice, sensitive and expressive, and in this case she has the plus of the arrangements by the excellent pianist Lilián Saba and the participation of prominent musicians as accompanists. A CD that shows a singer who – facing a committed repertoire – shows enough personality to emerge victorious from the challenge.

Jorge García.

“Tiempo Argentino”

This Panamanian singer and composer, endowed with a sweet and expressive voice, pays homage to Mercedes Sosa, whom she defines as “the person who left us a way of understanding the song as a profound and inseparable companion of our history, as a legacy of committed and forceful love.” Vlieg assumes this commitment by making her own the songs from the Tucumán singer’s repertoire and imbuing them with a breath and sensitivity that speak of the respect she has for her musical and spiritual guide. With musical direction and arrangements by pianist Lilián Saba and the participation of renowned musicians from our environment, “A una Cantora” is a moving tribute by an artist carried out with great tenderness and warmth.

“Telam”

Vlieg asume con sentimiento aquellas canciones a menudo corrompidas por la repetición mediática, el oportunismo y el gesto técnico rudimentario. Y nos recuerda -a medio camino entre el pase de magia y la persuasión artística- que alguna vez también nos gustaron.