Claude Marti, popularly known as Marti, was born in Carcassonne (1940). A singer, poet, writer and essayist in the Occitan language, he began to sing in 1970. He began his singing career as a solo artist, but very soon began to work with a series of splendid musicians including Gérard Pansanel, Pierre Peyras, Olivier Chabrol, Michel Marre, Patrice Héral and Lionel Suarez. Among his albums are Occitania (1969), Montségur! (1972) and L’Ome esper (1974), where the influence of jazz is notable; L’any 01 (1975) and Los commandos de la nuèit (1976), where the style is that of folk music, and El jinete (2002), Ço milhor de Marti (2006) and Tolosa (2008), a tribute to his friend Claude Nougaro.
He has also written books: Poésie et chansons (1974), Ome d’Oc (1974), Caminarem (1978), Les petites Espagnes (1984), Corbières au coeur 1998) and Ombres et lumière (1998).
He has obtained the Grand Prix Charles Cros from the Académie du Disque, has recorded music for TV Un été albigeois (FR3), Ces grappes de ma vigne (A2) and for the cinema (Conte d’automne, by Eric Rohmer), and a film for FR3 in 2008, Et pourtant elle tourne, written by his inseparable colleague Gérard Pansanel.
LiberPress Song Award 2010
Marti received the LiberPress Song Award because he is the leading singer-songwriter in the campaign to defend and recover the Occitan language and song, always writing, composing and singing in support of freedom, people’s rights, the defence of the Earth and democratic and humanitarian ideals, but never abandoning tenderness and poetry. He is, as Nougaro said, “a great countryman of the soul”.