Amaral is a Spanish group, from the city of Zaragoza, made up of Eva Amaral - vocals and composer - and Juan Aguirre - guitarist and composer. The group's name is Eva's surname. Their music is pop and rock, with poetic lyrics about feelings. Eva's voice is deep, strong and very melodious.

Biography:

1993-2000: The group Amaral was created on January 1st 1997 with Eva Amaral, main vocalist and composer, and Juan Aguirre, guitarist and composer, as members. The name of the group is Eva's surname, and it was chosen by Juan.

Their story started at the beginning of the 90's, when Eva and Juan met at a recording studio in the city of Zaragoza. At the time, Eva was playing with a group called Bandera Blanca (White Flag) and Juan, with his group Días De Vino Y Rosas (Days of Wine and Roses) collaborated with Eva's on one song. A close relationship was immediately born between them. In 1997 they moved from Zaragoza to Madrid and signed with Emi/Virgin. On May 5th 1998, they released their eponymous first album, Amaral, produced by Pancho Varona. They sold around 70,000 copies, in a country with 40 million inhabitants.

2000-2002

In the year 2000, after a tour to present their first album, Amaral went to London to record their second album, called Una Pequeña Parte Del Mundo (A Little Part of the World), produced by Cameron Jenkins. It was a more mature record which contained 13 songs. Twelve of them were composed by the group and the thirteenth one was a version of a song by the Spanish singer Cecilia.

2002-2004

Two years later, Amaral entered the studio again with the same producer and recorded their third album, called Estrella De Mar (Starfish). It was named Best National Album in 2002. They won several awards that year, including an MTV Europe Award to best Spanish artist, and five Spanish music awards. They also went international with this version, when their album was released under a new version in America in 2003. They sold 900,000 copies.

In 2004, they were supposed to record an album and play with Bob Dylan when he visited Spain, but Juan suffered a wrist injury, so they had to delay the recording and Eva sang alone with Dylan. Finally in November of that year, Eva and Juan recorded their fourth album Pájaros En La Cabeza (“Birds in the Head”, a Spanish expression meaning “dreamer”), again with Cameron Perkins. On March 14th 2004 they released it. It contained 14 songs, in a pop and rock style. They toured all over Spain until October, and later left to play in Mexico and Argentina. At the same time they recorded a concert for a DVD called El comienzo del Big Bang (The Beginning of the Big Bang). It was the best selling album in Spain in 2005, and sold about 600,000 copies worldwide.

In May 2008, they released their fifth studio album named Gato Negro.Dragón Rojo ("Black cat, red dragon"). This is the first album in which Juan sings, in the track Es Sólo Una Canción.

Eva has also sung with Moby.

Official site: www.amaral.es

User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.