Olga Ramos
Who is Olga Ramos?
Trinidad Olga Ramos Sanguino (Badajoz, July 20, 1918 – Boadilla del Monte, Madrid, August 25, 2005) was a Spanish singer specializing in cuplé. At eleven she moved with her family to Madrid, where she studied singing and violin at the Conservatory, winning the first prize in chamber music in 1943; she also studied drama and worked at the Fuencarral theatre.
Career
In the 1940s she was part of the Orquesta Fémina, an all-female orchestra, performing at Madrid café-concert venues such as El Café Universal, while also playing violin in venues across Salamanca, Zaragoza and Bilbao. In 1947 she married composer and bandleader Enrique Ramírez de Gamboa, known as “Cipri.” After some years away from the stage, she reappeared in 1967–1968 with the show “Las Noches del Cuplé” at a venue on Madrid’s Calle de la Palma, which later took that same name, performing there almost continuously until it closed in 1999. Her venue was visited by figures such as the then-Prince Felipe and Infanta Elena, Don Juan de Borbón, Plácido Domingo, Severo Ochoa and Mikhail Gorbachev. She also worked alongside her daughter, Olga María Ramos, also a performer, with whom she recorded the LP “Madrid entre cuplés y canciones.”
Legacy
Regarded as one of the last great exponents of cuplé and traditional Madrid culture, Olga Ramos received numerous honours during her life, including the Gold Medal for Merit at Work, the Madrid Medal for Artistic Merit, the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic, and the special “Una vida” award from the Madrid Awards. In 1994 she donated the rights to her song “Catedral de la Almudena” to the Association of Friends of Madrid Cathedral. She died in 2005 at age 87 from heart disease.