Exploring oneself and talking about emotions and experiences are the subjects of ATHENEA. Immigration, heartbreak and other subjects are also part of her inspiration. The mixture of cultures in her background and her surroundings allows her to innovate in her compositions. She plays with the popular latin musical genres and, sometimes, in the same song (son, charanga, rumba, timba, cumnbia, etc.). Her curiosity pushes her to play with the semitones in the melodies, and as a result we obtain nostalgic and melancholic melodic lines. Her work is a statement about the insistence on keeping cultures and traditions.
Melanie Monette Fowler Flores, known professionally as ATHENEA, is a singer, composer, producer, dancer, choreographer, actress, model, activist and fashion designer, born in Havana, Cuba. She studied percussion and piano at the Escuela Elemental de Música Manuel Saumell, and then theoretical subjects at the Conservatorio Amadeo Roldán.
Shortly after graduation, she moved with her family to Montreal, where she decided to enter the world of fashion design at Lasalle College. Her first public presentation took place at the age of 5 at the Maison de la Culture in her hometown. At the age of 9, she had the opportunity to share the stage with Cuban music personalities such as Rosita Fornés, Luis Carbonell, Buena Fe, among others. Already established in Montreal, she founded with Ricardo Soriano the group Q’bolà, now Q’bolà Orchestra, in 2018.
Since its inception, the group has performed in venues such as Club Balattou, La Sala Rossa among others. Among its personal recognitions is the 1st prize for the song “Marta Valdés”, in the category of interpretation with the song “20 Años”. ATHENEA is preparing the release of her new songs as a soloist and composer, which gives her the opportunity to show another side of the artist and the possibility of experimenting more with her music. The public, about her performance as the main singer of Q’bolá Orchestra, commented: “breathtaking”, “you dominate the stage”, “you are explosive”, “one never imagines what you are going to do”, “not only you dance well, but you live the song that you interpret”.
