In 2011, Myriam Hernandez released her studio album Seducción (Universal Music Latino), which peaked at No. 11 on Billboard‘s Latin Pop Albums chart. Earlier this year, she dropped Sinergia, her first studio album in 10 years and a completely independent release.
The reason for her decade-long hiatus? She didn’t connect with hitmakers.
“It really was 10 years, totally independent, there were many wonderful authors who had sent me songs but none of them really managed to fill my soul,” she tells Billboard. “When I record an album I always have to be 100% vibing and aware that those songs that I am going to record are really the ones that I want to sing both in the studio and on stage, which is what I want to convey to my fans.”
The Chilean singer/songwriter, who has a number of timeless tracks, including the Hot Latin Songs No. 1 hits “Te Pareces Tanto a El” and “Peligroso Amor,” explains that she felt worried at one point in her career because she wasn’t falling in love with any of the proposals.
That is, until Spanish composer Jacobo Calderón, son of the late singer and musician Juan Carlos Calderón, sent her a DM on Instagram. The latter worked on Hernandez’s 1992 album, Myriam Hernandez III, home to the classic singles “Se Me Fue” and “Un Hombre Secreto.”
“He told me that the album I made with his father marked his life, and that’s when we began having contact on WhatsApp, where he sent me his songs,” Hernandez says. “I swear that from the first song I fell in love, because I felt that they were songs sent by his father, Juan Carlos. He felt the same when he listened to me sing. He felt that his father made the songs.”
Called Sinergia (synergy) because of all the special moments that happened during the album’s process, the project is home to 11 brand-new tracks, including the heartfelt closer “Partir de Ti.”
“At one point, Jacobo told me that he found a cassette in his house with an unpublished melody of his father’s. He sent it to me to record, and when I did, I cried. For Jacobo, this also closed a circle because it was the first time he created a song with his father. It was a posthumous joint composition.”
Hernandez will kick off her Sinergia Tour in October, where she will be joined by talented musicians, choirs and state-of-the-art technology and perform the songs from her new set. The trek goes until Nov. 13 after visiting fans in Miami, Orlando, New York, Houston and Atlanta, to name a few.
As for what fans can expect on the tour? An honest and transparent connection with love. “I want to continue singing about love,” she says. “In this album, I refreshed my sound with more rhythmic sounds, but I think that I’m still betting on love, and on making music like before. I’ll be singing to love until the day I die.”