Pepa Botella de Castañer (Alcoy)
- She obtained an Honours degree in Practical Retitation at the Conservatory of Music and Retitation in Valencia.
- She performed as soloist-narrator in the play “Peter and the wolf” by Sergei Prokofiev with the Alcoyana Symphonic Orchestra in Alcoy (Alicante), with Rafael Casasempere as conductor.
- She performed as soloist with the Valencian Municipal Orchestra and Enrique García Asensio in the same play.
- Her performances based on poetic interpretation have led her to present several recitals in Spain and other countries.
- In 1998, she published “La Realidad Imaginada, Milagros Jordá Puigmoltó”, edited by the Alcoy City Council and by the Juan Gil-Albert Culture Institute.
- She is a board member of the Prometheus Poetry Association in Madrid and she works in all their outreach programs. She has written several articles in literary magazines.
- She has received the “Dama de la Encina” for poetry and “Prometeo de Plata”.
Several poets have written about and commented om the work of Pepa de Castañer:
“This voice, the prodigy of this sensitivity is what we call: The intermediary voice of the poetry”.
“So many feelings, so many forms of love, so many voices fit into the voice of Pepa, that it is a unique and multiple, and fabulous house, where the poetry is left to live”.
“This exceptional woman is close to all the directions of poetry, from today and yesterday, incorporating them into the soft glass of her accent”.
“Pepa de Castañer is yet more than a poet. Many poets together, which she interpretes with sensitivity, with nobility and truth”.
“Thanks for the inspiration and for giving life to my lyrics” .
“To my beloved and admired Pepa de Castañer with a tribute of admiration and gratitude for a life devoted to poetry”.
“Pepa de Castañer or the moving word, incorporated, recreated. Let's always applaud whoever tries to shape poetry with truth and love, in oral communication”.
“Thanks to Pepa de Castañer, an exceptional reciter in both languages.
At last I could say, listening to Pepa de Castanyer, those two verses by Maragall that define grace with perennial light and the fountain of all poetry:”
Basta una noia amb la veu pura per millorar la humanitat.
“Pepa de Castañer is probably the rhapsodic woman with most artistic sensibility that we have heard for some time within the Spanish scene”.
“Pepa de Castañer: The verse enhanced. And Pepa recounts them, sings them, embellishes with a masterly and moving rendition”.
“With the simplest elements, without grandiloquent glamour or grand gestures, with the precise modulations, Pepa de Castañer followed the emotional curve of the recital, with serenity and with passion”.