Born on the island of Majorca, where she learned traditional Balearic songs as a small child, Maria del Mar Bonet arrived in Barcelona around 1967 and began to sing with Els Setze Jutges, an important group of Catalan composers-singers, making her first stage appearances and recording four traditional songs from Menorca.
The following year, censors working under Franco's regime banned her from singing one of her most popular songs Què volen aquesta gent ? (What do these people want?). She began her first performances abroad in the early seventies in France, Denmark, England and has visited the following countries during the course of her career: Switzerland, Venezuela, Mexico, Portugal, Poland, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Greece, Tunisia, Holland, Belgium, the former USSR and Japan.
In 1971, one of her albums with the songs L'àguila negra (The black eagle) and No voldria res més ara (I wouldn't want anything else now), won the Spanish Golden Record award.
A few years later, Maria del Mar Bonet began a series of concerts in the Plaça del Rei in Barcelona (the most important music festival in Barcelona), which continued every summer until 2001, when the 25th anniversary of her performing in Barcelona was commemorated with a live album recorded over five nights of performances as part of the Grec Festival that year.
In 1981 she recorded Jardí Tancat (Closed garden) in Paris, with arrangements by Jacques Denjan and in cooperation with Alan Stivell. In 1984 the French government awarded her the Charles Cross Academy Prize for the best foreign record released in France. That same year she was awarded the Sant Jordi Cross, the highest distinction of Catalonia.
In 1985, as a result of her interest and research into North African music, she recorded Anells d’aigua (Rings of water) with the Ensemble de Musique Traditionelle de Tunis, and went on tour around France and Spain. They continued to perform live together up until a few years ago.
In 1986 Maria del Mar Bonet went on tour around Spain and Brazil with Milton Nascimiento as a result of the Brazilian musician's collaboration during one of her recitals in the Plaça del Rei. They gave a whole series of performances where both artists combined their rhythms and interchanged songs on stage.

Continuing to investigate new artistic forms, in 1998 Maria del Mar Bonet presented the show Arenal which combined Maria del Mar's songs with choreography by the choreographer and dancer Nacho Duato. The show was initially presented at the Netherlands Dans Theatre and has toured Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and Spain.
The choreography for Jardí Tancat was awarded the first choreography prize of Cologne, Germany. These two choreographies, together with Cor perdut (Lost heart) based on her popular song Bir Demet Yasemen which talks of desire, are being performed in different countries and by different companies at the moment so that, as in the words of Duato himself, “there is currently no day when a song by Maria del Mar Bonet is not being danced on some stage in some theatre in the world”
Also in 1988, Maria del Mar Bonet started working with jazz and premiered at the Teatre Lliure in Barcelona the show Ben a prop (Up close), performing together with the musician and pianist Manel Camp American standards and songs by Gershwin and the Rolling Stones, among others.
During 1992, Maria del Mar Bonet sang the welcome song at the International Perelada Music Festival, a contemporary work composed and performed by the guitarist Feliu Gasull, the Teatre Lliure Chamber Orchestra and the Ars Nova from Budapest.
In 1992 she received the National Prize awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan Government) for popularising Catalan folk music.
The show La Grècia de Theodorakis (Theodorakis’ Greece) was performed in the Plaça del Rei, recorded in 1993 under the title El.las, Maria del Mar Bonet canta Theodorakis (El.las, Maria del Mar Bonet sings Theodorakis). As a result of this work together, a friendship started between the two performers which has often led them to collaborate in different projects, right up to the present day.
In 1994 the show Merhaba premiered in the Plaça del Rei with the internationally famous Zulfu Omar Livanelli, containing a collection of songs and free adaptations by the Turkish composer.
In 1995 Maria del Mar Bonet presented Salmaia, a selection of themes from different Mediterranean countries (Turkey, Sicily and Naples in Italy, Greece) with the collaboration of the Ensemble de Musique Traditionnelle de Tunis and under the direction of Féthi Zghonda.
One of most important cultural events, the Edinburgh International Festival invited Maria del Mar Bonet to perform this new show in two daytime performances, to great acclaim; “one of Europe's - possibly the world’s - major voices” (Jan Fairley from The Scotsman, Edinburgh, 28th August 1995).
In 1996, invited by the International Conference “Habitat” organised by UNESCO, Maria del Mar Bonet performed with Zulfu Livanelli to a large audience (4,000 people) in Istanbul. In the summer of 1996 she also performed for the first time in Canada – in Montreal and Quebec – at two of the most prestigious festivals in America.
In 1997 Maria del Mar Bonet celebrated 30 years of music. For this reason, she held a significant concert at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona in front of 14,000 people. At this concert, broadcast live on television, she sang with international guests such as Lluís Llach, Joan Manuel Serrat (Catalonia), Nena Venetsanou (Greece), Catherine Allard (Belgian dancer) and Féthi Zghonda (Tunisia). Maria del Mar Bonet released a double album of the concert recorded live and under the same title: El cor del temps (The heart of time). In September, invited by UNESCO, she also performed in Thessalonica, European Culture Capital 1997.
1998 was a year of concerts abroad and collaboration with other well-known Spanish artists, such as Amancio Prada, Loquillo, Jordi Sabatés and Rosa Vergés. With special emphasis on her collaboration on the album in homage to Jackson Browne, Sing my songs performing Song for Adam. Performances of note abroad were: the Celtic Connection Festival in Glasgow (Scotland), Cantiga do Maio in Lisboa (Portugal), Festival Donnes in Musica, Fiuggi ( Italy) and other places such as Lausanne, Stockholm and Sicily.
In July, and for the first time, Maria del Mar Bonet presented, in Barcelona, a famous Italian singer Lucilla Galeazzi, playing together in the Plaça del Rei to great acclaim.
In September she travelled to South America to perform El Cor del temps (released by Acqua Records in Argentina), with concerts in Buenos Aires, Rios de la Plata, Parana and Santiago de Chile for the Salvador Allende homage concert. The same year she also toured around several cities in Morocco, such as Rabat, Casablanca, Fez, Tetuan, etc.
At the beginning of 1999 Maria del Mar Bonet recorded her new album Cavall de foc (Fire horse) with 12 traditional and Mediterranean songs. With this album she received the SGAE 2000 award for the song Com un mirall (Like a mirror). A few months later she also received an award from the Catalan government for best artistic career.
During the summer of 2000, she sang at the Festival Midem Cannes 2000, as part of its “Mediterranean night”. She also toured Spain with Jackson Browne. On the 29th of July she sang in Munich with Zülfu Livanelli and Maria Farantouri in a tribute concert to Mikis Theodorakis before 14,000 people.
As a result of this collaboration, in 2001 Maria Farantouri and Maria del Mar Bonet toured Spain, performing at the best theatres in the country: Salamanca, Pamplona, Cordoba, the Auditorium in Barcelona, etc.
In the Plaça del Rei she presented the show Domino, with songs from colleagues in the profession and other singers, and sang in French for the first time in public, performing a song as her own particular homage to the French woman Patachou.
At the same time, Maria del Mar was also extending her international prestige at Boston, Philadelphia (USA), Rudolstadt (Germany), Lisbon and Coimbra (Portugal), Tunis and Rumania.
In 2001, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of her recitals in the Plaça del Rei in Barcelona, Maria del Mar Bonet recorded the live CD “RAIXA” with the composer Joan Valent and his group Ars Ensemble.
Raixa won the 6th Music Awards as Best Album in Folk Music, Best Album in Catalan and Best Arranger. Raixa was also voted the Best Folk Album by the magazine Enderrock and another award from the Altaveu Music Festival (Barcelona).
The Raixa world music international tour 2002-2003 visited important places and festivals, such as Istanbul, Athens (Womad Festival), France (Bezier, Lyon), Italy (Turin), London (Barbican Theatre, Mediterranean Festival), USA (New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc.), Canada, Holland (Concertgebouw, Amsterdam), Belgium (Gent), Japan (Tokyo) and Syria (Damascus).
At the same time as this intense activity on the world's stages, Maria del Mar Bonet also brought out her new show after “Raixa” at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, held from the 27th to the 30th March 2003 and entitled Caloma. Des de Mallorca a l’Alguer (Caloma. From Majorca to Alghero).
In July 2004, at the Festival Forum of Cultures in the Teatre Grec (Barcelona), Maria del Mar presented her latest work, Amic, Amat, with the excepcional collaboration of Cantiga Chorus and the Cham Ensemble from Damascus (Syria).
Amic, Amat was awarded the prestigious Music Ciutat de Barcelona award by Barcelona City Council. In September 2005 Maria del Mar Bonet also received the Medalla d’Or de Mallorca .
The international tour of Amic, Amat has visited the USA (Los Angeles, Seattle, Central Park in New York and Providence), Greece (Athens and Naxos) and the Azem Palace in Damascus (Syria), together with the Damascan musicians from the Cham Ensemble from Damascus. This concert was recorded live by the Catalan TV channel, TV3, for a special documentary to be shown at Christmas 2005.