"Music means the world to me, it's an emotional connection, my anchor. It saved my spirit," says Marta Topferova, the 30-year old singer whose Latin American songs belie her Eastern European roots.

Now settled in New York City, Marta was born in the former Czechoslovakia before she and her family moved to Seattle in the mid-Eighties.

It is her cross-cultural upbringing which makes Marta an ideal representative of the New Latin Spirit - a title that relates to a new generation of artists rooted in the Latin American music tradition while bringing other influences into the mix.

"I am of a mixed background,"says Marta. "That seeps into my music. I think that is happening more and more because of people travelling so much, because of the internet. There is a big exchange of culture and language going on, and there is a new approach to music in my generation."

A double-headline gig, Marta and her quartet will share the stage with Roberto Fonseca, the young Cuban pianist who found fame succeeding the late great Ruben Gonzalez as the heartbeat of the Buena Vista Social Club, and is now launching his international career with an acclaimed new Latin jazz album - Zamazu.

Fonseca, dressed in trademark leather hat and designer suit, is classically trained and has a natural flair for jazz, but his Afro-Cuban rhythms are accentuated with contemporary references from hip-hop to soul and funk.

Born in Havana, Fonseca has been immersed in Latin American music from birth. Marta was exposed to Latin American music and culture later, although it was already a strong presence in her life by the time she moved to America. It was the isolation she felt as an immigrant, she says, which forged the connection.

"I found myself identifying with other immigrants, and the Latin American community were so open and warm it became an even stronger force in my life."

Teaching herself Spanish as a young teen, it wasn't long before Marta was practically fluent. She now writes all her lyrics in Spanish and her warm, sensual tones are filled with the sort of imagery found in the poems of her favourite Latin American poets such as Garcia Lorca and Pablo Neruda. "Their poems inspired me a lot, the way they communicate about nature and the struggles of the human spirit. They are not afraid to confront difficult and deep emotions."

  • Starts: 7.30pm Tickets: £15-£18

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