07 Jun Lucy Kalantari’s New Spanish-Language Album ‘Creciendo’ Goes Back to the Artist’s Roots
New York-based children’s music artist Lucy Kalantari— a singer-songwriter whose body of work spans old jazz, pop, rock, and beyond — released her first full length Spanish children’s album Creciendo, on May 28.
The 10-track record is festive, fun to listen to, and anchored in a deep backstory: Creciendo means growing up in Spanish and is just what this collection is about. It’s also her first full length album in 6 years following the release of her Grammy award winning All The Sounds in 2019.
Raised by immigrant parents from the Dominican Republic and from Puerto Rico, Lucy draws from her own experiences growing up in both the Dominican Republic and in America, and from raising her own bilingual child Darius, who is quite the cello player! Notably, the record was produced by a lineup of all women engineers worked hard for the album’s creation.
We recently caught up with Lucy to learn more about this album, family ties, and raising a musical kid.
Rockmommy: This is your first Spanish-language record. Why now?
Lucy Kalantari: Yes! And I’m so excited it’s finally real and no longer just a pile of music sitting in my head. The reason is twofold: I’ve been wanting to make a Spanish album for families for years and years, but between COVID and other personal challenges, including my Dominican mother being diagnosed with dementia, I kept pushing it out.
Ironically, her advancing dementia made me feel the pressure of time and gave me the push I needed to finally make this album. It’s a progressive disease, and I really wanted her to be present enough in mind to experience this new music in her native language with me. The experience was everything I had hoped for and more. I shared so much of the process with her, singing different pieces of melodies and lyrics as I was making them and she would surprise me by singing it back to me later, as if she had always known the songs! She can’t remember our conversations, nor where she is, nor what year it is, but music stays with her.
The other reason is that my children’s music puts an emphasis on joy, community and resilience, and now more than ever, we need to highlight the importance of resilience. We can’t protect our children from every single unpredictable thing that life brings, but we can certainly equip them with the right tools. Part of growing up (Creciendo!) is the incredible desire to learn, but also falling and getting hurt. It’s the getting back up that builds and makes you shine even brighter. Making this children’s album felt as right as rain.
Rockmommy: Were you inspired by any particular artists or film or ideas (My younger son and I are obsessed with Encanto!)?
Lucy Kalantari: I LOVE Encanto! And I loved that around the same time, just a few months earlier, the movie Vivo came out as well with a slammin’ soundtrack! (Lin Manuel Miranda was busy as always making wonderful music for the world.) During that time, I kept hearing my English-only-speaking neighbors in Brooklyn blasting the soundtrack to Vivo throughout the summer in the backyard.
Not only listening to these wonderful Latin beats, but also singing along–LOUDLY! That really moved me. It made me feel more confident about bringing the sounds of my Latin culture into my music along with my jazz age styles. And because the universe listens, not too long after that, I got a call about writing music for the new relaunch for Dora! I was fully committed and ready to go!
Rockmommy: How’s collaborating with your young son? Sometimes when my kids don’t practice their instruments, I like to show them videos of Darius. :) Do you always see eye-to-eye musically?
Lucy Kalantari: I’m so happy to hear that Darius continues to inspire kids all around! I love how musical he is, always humming when he works. I feel really blessed that we can make so much music together, though it’s not always quite so smooth.
For my new album, Creciendo, he played a lot of cello. Especially in La Luciérnaga, which had 5 different cello parts played multiple times. He would wake up super early at 6:15am or 6:30am, and we would track cello for an hour before school. I’d make him a special breakfast to celebrate his job well done. It was a wonderful flow and we had a great time. Beautiful, right?
Compare that to a recent recording for another artist I’m producing, he woke up whiny and cranky, and we were bickering through the talkback mic. Not quite so beautiful. I was deeply reminded that he is only 11 years old. Haha. We took a beat and I said, “I think we should try this again later after school. That cool? But you gotta ‘bring it’ alright?” And he DID! He brought it beautifully.
It was such a great reminder of the patience and flexibility we need to have as human beings with each other, and ourselves.
Marisa Torrieri Bloom is the editor and founder of Rockmommy.
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