Bárbara Martínez has an extensive performance career that began at age 11 with The Children’s Chorus of the Metropolitan Opera. She has been crafting performance skills as a dancer and vocal artist ever since. Bárbara is one of few flamenco artists who perform regularly both as singer and dancer with the major flamenco dance companies and ensembles in the United States, such as Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana, A Palo Seco Flamenco Company, Pasión y Arte Flamenco Company, Sol y Sombra Flamenco Company, EntreFlamenco, Cava Flamenco Miami, Juanito Pascual, Nelida Tirado, Arts Flamenco, Flamenco Sepharad, New Andalucía and others.

She leads a host of solo projects. She leads a latin jazz/flamenco project that began with a sold-out evening at Carnegie Hall in 2010. This program has grown to include music from South America, the Middle East, Sephardic music and jazz. Together with Albert Alabedra, Bárbara co-leads a vibrant flamenco fusion project called ALBA MUSIK, which has been releasing music since 2023 and has made the first round Grammy’s 3 years in a row. Her newest project is called Barbarella, a body of original work in English and Spanish that comes from a new interest in songwriting and producing. Bárbara also found a way to bring art and activism together in a one-women dance theater project called TrashBata that speaks to the environmental crisis of plastic in our environment.

Bárbara comes from a lineage of celebrated artists. Argentinian tango singer/actress Morenita Rey was her grandmother and icon Libertad Lamarque, known as “La Novia de Am´rica” was her grand-aunt. Her father, Rafael Martínez, was a celebrated Venezuelan sculptor who played a key role in the kinetic art movement. Bárbara has worked as an actor, dancer and choreographer in multimedia musical plays written and directed by her mother, playwright and art-historian, Amelia Arenas.

You can see Bárbara in the documentary “Sobre Las Olas – A Story of Flamenco in the U.S.” by Carolina Loyola-Garcia and the photography exhibit “100 Years of Flamenco in New York” produced by NY Performing Arts Library and Carlota Santana Flamenco Vivo. The Philadelphia Inquirer called her voice “achingly beautiful” and The New York Times said she makes “something fresh of the Latin style.”

Bárbara is an Honors graduate from Brown University and holds a Masters in Songwriting from Berklee College of Music. She currently teaches music at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School.