Consuelo Luz
"I am on a journey of discovery of the bio-mystic nature of the sounds we utter, how they affect us spiritually and physically and how the frequency of sound is the fabric of the world we inhabit." - Consuelo Luz
Consuelo Luz, vocal alchemist, singer/songwriter, activist, award-winning recording and performance artist, known worldwide for her soulful interpretation of Sephardic music, has performed internationally, produced and recorded eight albums and her works have been included in many international music compilations such as the popular Buddha Bar and Putumayo series.
Consuelo's exploration of Sephardic music, Hebrew mystical tradition and North and South American indigenous teachings and her urge to express her own insights and passions in original songs took her out into the world to perform in various venues, including:
Parliament of World Religions in Barcelona, Spain
Les Orientales Sacred Music Festival in France
World Expo in Germany
Sephardic Arts Festival in Los Angeles
National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque
Albuquerque Folk Festival
San Fernando Cathedral and Temple Beth El in San Antonio, Texas
BB King Blues Club in New York City
Café de la Niña, Isla Negra, Chile
World Music Festival of the Soul - Silver City
Festival Djudeo Espanyol, Albuquerque
Consuelo made Northern New Mexico her home back in the seventies when she drove her 1948 bread truck into Taos in an April snowstorm while headed for Patagonia, a fated detour that would transform her life. She never made it to Patagonia (still on her bucket list), settling instead in Taos, later Las Trampas and Santa Fe, raising four children and following her heart and her voice.
"I thrived as I raised my sons and daughter in mountain villages where I absorbed the wisdom and beauty of the local culture and its spiritual ties to the land and learned to chop wood, haul water, plant, harvest, preserve food and build with adobe. Here I found the true meaning of community and the value of a simpler way of life."
Raised in Greece, the Philippines, Spain, Italy and Peru by Chilean/Cuban parents, after seven years of classical piano training Consuelo switched to guitar at age fourteen in order to learn legendary Peruvian songwriter Chabuca Granda's folk songs which, together with beloved South American love ballads and the protest songs of the sixties, inspired Consuelo to start writing her own songs and to embark on an epic quest for love, poetry, justice and truth, which she has, so far, survived, aided by loving friends along the way and lots of geraniums and green chile.
“I honor my ancestral background: Spanish Basque, Sephardic and Mapuche. I explore all these roots and their ancient wisdom which lives in my blood. I embrace them but also go beyond them to a place that is fluid and present. I celebrate both diversity and oneness, reflected in the uniqueness of sacred languages and the universality of sound."
"Sound calls us at this time to remember root soul songs, find our star tongue, manifest musical languages of ancient and future light and voice the radiant dialect of the heart. I call this vocal alchemy.
"Vocal alchemy helps us express the unknowable, evolve our dreams and identities and awaken our dormant selves. When we free our voices we can re-tune our own stories and thus the stories that create culture, weaving the individual threads of our varied ancestries and multicultural pathways into a new narrative which can embrace it all. What we sing, write, utter and dance is the magical mechanism with which we rise above what separates us to a place where our different myths can co-exist in the poetic grandness, aching heartbreak, belly laugh fun, silent depth and sweet joy of diversity.”