Starring… 4 and a nymph

Born in London, she’s always kept a special link to that city, so it was hardly a coincidence that she specialised in English Philology. A vocational teacher and a devoted learner, Laura enjoys singing, chatting, reading, cooking and walking. Generosity wins her heart, as do people whose innocence holds up with time.

Just like her voice, Laura is welcoming, heartfelt and always has a smile on her face, that’s why she invariably fills rehearsals with emotion, laughter and delicious refreshments.

She’d love to eradicate bigotry and to get lost in an Alpine valley among snowy mountains. She loves the green in tree leaves and the magic in some of the chords in Say a Little Prayer.

When she goes over her day before going to sleep, she likes to take inspiration in the phrase: “Courage is what you need to get up and speak, but also to sit down and listen.” What about to sing in 4×4?

She’s a Telecommunications engineer and Marketing militant, occupations which she’s always carried out with the strong conviction that technology and communication have the power to transform the world, just like music.

Madrid-born and bred, Carmen is innovative, committed and sensitive. She’s a firm believer in the power of small details and thinks that humour is a very serious business. Her strongest desire is to wipe out violence from the world, and yet her superheroes are people who smile on the underground at 8 in the morning.

She loves rye bread and her favourite colour is the sky’s deep blue as dusk gives way to night-time. But her biggest passion is music and, on top of singing, she plays the guitar. No wonder her eyes glow when she says that “happiness must be something like what I feel when I sing with my girls in 4×4”…

She was born in Majorca where her favourite place lies: the small bay where she used to go as a kid to listen to the sea and seagulls. In her quest to solve problems, she studied Telecommunications Engineering, though she would have always loved to be a musician.

Cristina is spontaneous, lively and determined. Her greatest passions are nature in its purest state and music: she never gets tired of singing or listening to songs such as Crime of the Century or Shine on You, Crazy Diamond. She thinks happiness is feeling good about oneself and lives every day like it’s a real gift. Her motto is “Do not to others what you do not want done to yourself”. She admires people who give and don’t expect anything in return and gets inspiration from people of good heart.

She loves cannelloni and her favourite colour is bright sky blue, bright like the glow her voice gives to each one of 4×4’s chords.

In her ceaseless quest to know how the world works, she studied Maths, Physics and Philosophy, until she became an expert in quantum mechanics. She’s also a musician, a pianist and the only Spanish woman to make barbershop arrangements (to our knowledge!).

Originally from Madrid, Patricia keeps a very special memory of Bristol, where she studied and woke up to life. The colour of red plums is her favourite colour and she loves the smell of cinnamon and bread.

Patricia is optimistic, resolute and an extrovert. She squirms with injustice and defines happiness as what she lives every day. In the mornings, after turning off her third alarm, she comes alive with porridge (and for some reason finds it delicious).

Though she wouldn’t mind getting lost in any city full of strangers, her favourite place is home where she likes to read, sing, cook, sing, listen to Mendelssohn or Bach, sing some more and rehearse with 4×4 among laughter, harmony and tasty cakes.

She can’t be seen, nor felt, nor smelt, but she makes herself heard with her incredibly high-pitched and powerful voice. In the barbershop world she’s known as an overtone, but we like to call her our nymph. And, though her voice isn’t human, she sounds very natural, and that’s because her voice is the sum of the harmonics in our voices when we sing certain chords. If the quartet’s tuning is perfect, our nymph gets really excited and can sing up to 4 parts all by herself. The outcome is an expanded, enveloping, harmonically rich, sound.

4×4’s nymph is captivating, vibrant and demanding. Her favourite pastime is making the audience get goosebumps while she embraces us with her formidable sound and makes us shudder.

Without our nymph, we wouldn’t be a barbershop quartet. Without her, we wouldn’t be in love with this style of music. That’s why we take special care of her in our rehearsals and performances.