María Carmen González was born in 1960 in the municipality of Tijarafe, in the Canary Island of La Palma. She is an Art Education teacher at the Tijarafe Public Primary School.

"My home is a balcony over the sea. Here the sky is of a deep blue and at dusk the soul feels the yearn to fly over the cliffs and disappear beyond the horizon. I search in my guitar for the sounds that will take me back to my most intimate and personal space, music."

"Carmen and Pedro (her husband, well-known painter) have created in Tijarafe their secret garden, a place for calm and peacefulness, a niche where colours, verses and melodies arise in a natural, spontaneous way, as a logical consequence of the beauty that surrounds them..." wrote local Journalist Nomar Ojuaro.

She became interested in literature at school with the encouragement of her teachers. While studying teaching in La Laguna (Tenerife Island), she sang in a choir for the first time. She also became interested in painting, and took part in some exhibitions. Later she joined the choir Coral del Pino, a very gratifying and enriching experience for her. Afterwards, together with Miguel González, she formed the children's choir Coro de Voces Blancas de Tijarafe, continuing to direct it on her own. For several years they sang with the recognition and the support of the public and were able to share very interesting experiences in the different recitals and events both on and off the Island.

"Singing for me has always been as natural as breathing, it is an essential part of my personality. I always remember myself singing, since I was very young, always searching, finishing off, inventing melodies. I couldn't imagine my life without songs..."

In addition to her work with the choir, she became a member of the Tijarafe folk association Agrupación Folklórica de Tijarafe in which, besides being a soloist, she also played the guitar. This is the instrument that allowed her to introduce games and songs into the classroom. Her works for children are culminated in the album "Arco de Colores" done in collaboration with the musician from the Island of Palma, Jorge Guerra.

She believes - "To sing is to communicate, transcend, go beyond myself, to channel those subtle energies which envelop us and define a domain, a spiritual space."

In the eighties she performed as a singer-songwriter playing some concerts with Ricardo Cáceres. It was in 1990-91 that she found a line that fully harmonises with the way she understands music as a form of expression. This is possible thanks to the poet and musician of Galician origin from La Palma, Ramón Araújo, with whom she also shares a strong and long-lasting friendship. At that time Ramón Araújo composed a series of songs for a project called Vrandán, with clear ethno-folk tendencies and influences of Celtic music are notorious. For two years she was part of this group which she left when she felt it drifted towards other musical trends. She considers this experience key in the path that would lead her to become Ima Galguén.

"Ima Galguén is the artistic name I have adopted from the album "Regreso al Espíritu", an evocation of the magical beauty this island enthrals, a work Ramón Araújo and I began in the year 1995 and which was finished in August 1997. Anyone who roams the peaks, forests, ravines and volcanoes of La Palma will find there echoes of this work, for us a return to the origins and at the same time, an exploration of the mystical mystery the island emanates."

"When Ima Galguén steps onto the stage she transforms, her presence turns Angelic and Solemn, as if she were the legitimate heiress of those bards which in other times redeemed us from pain and, with their feeling and their voice, once more gave meaning to our lives." (Nomar Ojuaro)

She is preparing for the promotion of "Regreso al Espíritu", a second album Ramón and Ima are working on.

"I don't know where music will take me nor what new universes it may unveil to me. I only have the certainty and the desire, ever stronger, to follow in this path."

So far IMA GALGUÉN has been released in Taiwan, China & Hong Kong on WIND RECS., in Italy on ERGA and PUTUMAYO has included the track "La Zarza" in their Compilation "WOMEN OF SPIRIT" for the US.

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