Image: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid
Valeria Castro gave a surprise concert at Veranos de la Villa on 15 July, performing in the Patio Central of Conde Duque in Madrid as part of the city’s summer festival programme. The singer-songwriter from La Palma appeared before an audience that had not been told in advance who would take the stage, turning the evening into an unexpected reveal centered on her voice and song choices.
The event was organized by Madrid’s city council through Veranos de la Villa, one of the capital’s major summer festivals. According to the city’s account of the concert, the performance began at 10 p.m. at the Centro de Cultura Contemporánea Condeduque and brought Castro together on stage with Pau Vegas and María de la Flor. The setting placed the concert within a larger municipal festival context, while keeping the focus on a single live appearance in the Conde Duque complex.
Castro’s set included 'Guerrera', 'La soledad' and 'La raíz', a song that the municipal report said was nominated for a Latin Grammy. The concert was described as intimate and closely connected to the audience, with the singer’s restrained delivery shaping the atmosphere in the courtyard. The source also notes that the artist’s style and sensitivity resonated with the crowd gathered in the venue’s stands.
A notable element of the evening was Castro’s personal link to Conde Duque. During her university years, she regularly studied at the Biblioteca Pública Municipal Benito Pérez Galdós, which is located within the same complex. The concert therefore brought her back to a place she had known as a student, after commuting there to study while she was enrolled in Biotechnología at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
In comments reported by the city’s website, Castro said performing there felt like “poder cerrar el círculo,” referring to the contrast between her earlier life as a student and her later return as an artist. She said she had been living in Madrid since she was 18 and described the city as a place that had welcomed her. The source also records her saying that Madrid is now the home that receives her, and that she feels the city is especially open to people who come from elsewhere.
The article published by the city government places the concert within Castro’s broader artistic trajectory. It notes that she was born in 1999 in Los Llanos de Aridane, La Palma, and that she released her second album, 'El cuerpo después de todo', in 2025. That record was produced by Carles Campi Campón and, according to the source, was recorded between Mexico and Spain. The same report says Castro will tour in at least 17 countries and is scheduled to appear at Madrid’s Teatro Real on 30 July.
For Veranos de la Villa, the surprise set added another live music moment to a festival identified by the city as a fixture of Madrid’s summer cultural calendar. In this case, the surprise was matched by an unusually direct sense of place: a singer returning to the same complex where she once studied, this time to perform before a festival audience in Conde Duque on 15 July.
