Meet Lina Tur Bonet

As a native of Ibiza, Spain, it’s particularly fitting for you to share music from Spain with our audience. What do you hope that listeners will discover about Spanish baroque music?  

I believe our music truly mirrors the vibrant spirit, warmth, and sunny climate of our culture, capturing our innate spontaneity and love for celebration. Through Spanish baroque music, I hope listeners discover that this repertoire is deeply expressive, full of rhythm, and alive with the same passionate energy that defines Spanish life today. 

Ultimately, I want our audience to hear how historical Spanish music pulses with a unique social warmth and theatrical flair, inviting everyone to connect with its joyful vitality. By sharing these rich sounds, I hope to show that our musical heritage is an ongoing celebration of community and the art of truly enjoying life.  

In this program, Tafelmusik audiences will have an opportunity to hear a fandango that you improvise. Can you tell us a bit about your approach to improvisation with this kind of repertoire in particular? 

I absolutely love to improvise, and as a Spaniard, I feel like the fandango is truly in my blood! When I was a child, I studied dance and spent years immersed also in Spanish dance and flamenco, which deeply shaped my musical roots. 

Historically, the fandango was a wildly popular activity. Back then, violinists frequently improvised on fandangos—much like they did with folías—and we can still find numerous anonymous fandango manuscripts preserved in libraries all across Europe. In its time, it was considered the height of sophistication and a true crowd-favorite, carrying that unmistakable, deeply captivating touch of Spanish sensuality. 

Tafelmusik audiences will be treated to music not only from baroque Spain but also from Italy and Latin America. Can you tell us about your experience with South American music? 

I have been fortunate to travel and perform in most of South America, sharing the stage with local musicians along the way. South American music infuses rhythmic richness with a profound warmth and vibrant joy in artistic expression. You can truly see and feel the love and care in how they approach arts, including paintings and crafts, and it’s something that always touches me on a deep level.  

After years of wonderful experiences—from performing in renowned theaters in Buenos Aires to researching the rich baroque library in the jungle of Chiquitos—I was delighted to be invited to collaborate with Tafelmusik in the development of this fantastic program. It brings together cultures that I feel are intimately intertwined as sisters. 

For this program, Tafelmusik bassist Jussif Barakat is arranging two pieces from the Codex Martinez Compañón, a collection of baroque music from Peru. Have you performed music from this collection before? What do you find fascinating about it?  

Yes, I have performed music from this collection on previous occasions. 

What I find most fascinating about the Codex Martínez Compañón is how it serves as an interesting, living window into the musical and cultural melting pot of 18th-century Peru. Compiled by Bishop Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón during his pastoral visits, the collection preserves a unique intersection of Spanish baroque traditions with Indigenous and Peruvian rhythms and instruments. Playing these pieces feels like stepping back in time—they capture a rare, joyful energy and a depth of cultural heritage that you rarely encounter. 

You have described playing the baroque violin for the first time as life-changing, saying, “As soon as I played it, something inexplicable moved inside me—I will never forget the feeling!” Can you tell us more about this? What do you find to be special about the baroque violin?

That absolute authenticity is precisely what makes it so powerful. Even though it is hard to put into words, that unique connection comes down to a few extraordinary qualities that set the baroque violin apart. 

Without modern steel strings or a chinrest, the instrument feels completely alive in your hands, vibrating directly against you with a raw, organic voice. Playing without modern constraints invites a completely different relationship with the music—one defined by expressive gut strings, historical bows, and rhetorical phrasing rather than standardization.