Feature: 'A good adventure' as Spanish singer Luz Casal helps welcome Chinese New Year

Spanish singer Luz Casal during the Cadena Dial Awards 2014. March 7, 2014. [Photo/IC]

"A good adventure, which asked a lot of me and demanded a lot of commitment," is how Spanish singer Luz Casal described the experience of singing in the traditional New Year Gala to be broadcast in Beijing based television network CCTV to help welcome in the 'Year of the Goat.'

Luz is perhaps best known for the song 'Piensa en mi' (Think of me) which appeared in the Pedro Almodovar film, 'High Heels', but that is just one moment in a career spanning over 30 years in which she has released over 15 albums with career sales of over 5 million and which has also seen her win two battles against breast cancer.

Throughout her career Luz has sung in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French, but for the New Year gala, she faced one of her "biggest challenges," singing in Chinese and knowing that if she got it wrong she would "look ridiculous in front of 700 million people."

Luz explained at a meeting with Chinese press in Madrid, the opportunity came around two years after a series of concenters in China in which she had visited cities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.

"It's a chance that has fallen from heaven," explained Luz, although that chance "from heaven" left her with a lot of work to learn a Chinese version of one of her most popular songs.

She set about the task by working every day for a month with her teacher Julia, who commented that in her first session, Luz had "problems with pronunciation ... But the second time she had improved a lot and people were surprised how she sang."

"It (Chinese) is a complex and complicated language, but with effort, someone what is dedicated to music can learn it by working on the sounds," explained Luz, who added that singing in Chinese was a way of establishing a relationship with the public.

"If you can learn to sing one song, then the wall between you and the audience gets smaller," she said, although she admitted that at times she had "felt like a schoolgirl," as she focused on getting the sounds as "close as possible," to the authentic Chinese pronunciation.

Luz carried out her performance in a striking red dress. "Red means 'passion' to me," said the singer, of the color which can signify 'good luck' in China. "To have a relationship with a color which means 'luck' in another country is important."

And luck could be on the horizon as Luz admitted she "had the feeling I'll be back in China in the year of the goat," and given that she also says now she would "rather sing in Chinese than in English," that return cannot be very far away.