MARÍA DOLORES PRADERA

Biography

María Dolores Pradera, María Dolores Fernández Pradera (born 29 August 1924 in Madrid) is a Spanish melodic singer and actress, and one of the most prestigious voices in Spain and Latin America. She is also known as María Dolores Pradera. She started her career as an actress, working in the theatre and in some of the most famous Spanish movies from the 1940s: “¡A mí la legión!” (1942), “La Lola se va a los puertos” (1947), or “Agustina de Aragón” (1950).

During the 1950s, she started singing professionally, eventually abandoning her career as an actress in the 1960s. Since then, she has recorded more than 35 discs.

As a singer, she has specialized in traditional Spanish and Latin American music: bolero, copla (music), ballad, ronda, vals, and folk music (Peruvian, Argentinian, Mexican, and Venezuelan). Her voice tone is clear and slightly low, and she has an extremely proper Spanish pronunciation. She typically sings accompanied by guitars, requintos, and drums. She sang for close to 30 years with the same group, Los Gemelos, formed by twin brothers, Santiago López Hernández and Julián López Hernández, until the death of Santiago in the early 1990s.