Soprano Natalia Santaliz at the Festival Internacional de Música Pau Casals, El Vendrell, 2026

El Vendrell, Spain, 2026. Photograph by Silvia Isach.

Las Tres Estrofas: El Recital

The songs Pablo Casals wrote for soprano, in the voice of a new Puerto Rican generation.

A one-hour recital for soprano and piano, produced by the Olga Iglesias Project.

The program

A recital for soprano and piano, without intermission, built around the concert songs Pablo Casals wrote for soprano voice. Several reached audiences for the first time in the voice of Olga Iglesias, and some were recorded in 1966 under the composer's own supervision.

This was Olga's repertoire. She sang it for fifteen years alongside the maestro, and with it the Puerto Rican and Catalan music that shared those programs.

The program is sung in Catalan and Spanish, and adjusts in length and content to the occasion. The full list of works, with timings, is sent on request.

For some pieces a guest cello joins, which can be a local artist. Casals without a cello would not be Casals.

Casals' songs have never toured. This recital carries them by the only route there is: the soprano who premiered them, the archive that kept them, the music as he left it.

Sixty years, the same song

Olga Iglesias in 1966, recording Pablo Casals' songs for Columbia Records at the Marlboro Festival, with the composer supervising the session. And Natalia Santaliz in 2026, singing the same music in El Vendrell, Spain, the town where Casals was born.

Olga Iglesias, 1966

Olga Iglesias sings at the 1966 recording session with Pablo Casals at Marlboro.

Natalia Santaliz, 2026

Soprano Natalia Santaliz on stage in El Vendrell

Tres Estrofas de Amor

"Tres Estrofas de Amor", live from the Festival Internacional de Música Pau Casals, El Vendrell, Spain, with Izabella Simon at the piano.

De Cara al Mar

"De Cara al Mar", live from El Vendrell, Spain, with Izabella Simon at the piano.

Natalia Santaliz with the audience of the Auditori Pau Casals in El Vendrell, July 2026. Photograph by Silvia Isach.

Where this voice comes from

Casals chose her. In 1958 Olga Iglesias made her debut as soloist with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, presented by Festival Casals, Inc. Two years later she received a letter from Alexander Schneider with the news that Pablo Casals had selected her as soloist for three concerts under his own baton. From then on she was the soprano who sang El Pessebre more than any other, from the American premiere in San Francisco to the United Nations, Athens, and Casals' native Catalonia.

Her archive is preserved. The Olga Iglesias Project stewards the soprano's personal collection, thousands of pieces of letters, programs, photographs, and recordings, digitized and open to the public at the Digital Library of the Caribbean. This program was not assembled from a discography. It was assembled from the papers.

The Fundació Pau Casals is a partner. In October 2022 the Project signed a collaboration agreement with the Fundació Pau Casals of Catalonia, carrying into the present the relationship Olga and the maestro cultivated in life.

The voice is from here. Natalia Santaliz is a Puerto Rican soprano and an Olga Iglesias Project artist. In July 2026 she sang this repertoire at the Festival Internacional de Música Pau Casals in El Vendrell, Spain, in the year of the maestro's sesquicentennial.

The story of Olga and Casals Explore the collection

The artists

Natalia Santaliz, soprano (opens in a new tab)

Puerto Rican soprano Natalia Santaliz made her 2024 debut at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center as a member of the cast of Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar. She has appeared as soprano soloist in Mozart's Mass in C minor with the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra and, in her Buffalo Philharmonic debut, under the baton of Maestro Maximiano Valdés. A former Resident Artist with Opera San José, in July 2026 she was invited to the 45th Pau Casals International Music Festival in El Vendrell, Catalonia, Spain, in the year of the maestro's sesquicentennial. She has been an Olga Iglesias Project Fellow since 2025.

Pianist Ernesto Busigó, music director of the Olga Iglesias Project

Ernesto Busigó, piano

Music director of the Olga Iglesias Project, Ernesto Busigó holds a Master's in Performance specializing in accompaniment from the University of Memphis. He serves on the faculty of the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, as music director of the Catedral San Juan Bautista, and as accompanist of the Coro de Niños de San Juan. He has accompanied the Puerto Rico Philharmonic Orchestra and performed the winning works of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña's Puerto Rican Danza Composition Competition in 2017 and 2018.

Presenting the program

Format: One hour, no intermission. Soprano and piano.
What the Project provides: Production, artist fees, program notes in Spanish, press materials and high-resolution photographs, and support in preparing cultural funding applications.
What the venue provides: A tuned grand piano, basic sound and lighting, lodging and travel.
Education add-on: The artists can offer a school recital or a masterclass during their stay, in the tradition of the recitals the Project has brought to schools across the island since 2021. Quoted separately.
Availability: 2027 and 2028 seasons. Write to us for dates.
Fee: On request, by market and format.