JOANA AMENDOEIRA (Fado)
Born in Santarém, Joana Amendoeira soon capted the attention of the inner fado circle of Lisbon, where she started a career when she still was a young girl. Consider to be one of the most representative fado singers of her generation (Award Casa da Imprensa / Grande Noite do Fado 2004), she recorded five albuns since then, of which “Joana Amendoeira & Mar Ensemble” has been chosen the best fado record of the year (Award Amália Rodrigues 2008). With a long experience behind her, her career has been followed abroad where she appears regularly in the major venues and concert halls of Europe (see for more info: www.joanaamendoeira.net). Being a fado singer in the classic tradition, Joana doesn’t refuse new experiences in other musical areas, as she fully proved in her latest record with a classic orchestra or in collaboration with musicians and composers of popular music. The classic formation is normally a trio (Portuguese Guitar, Viola and Double-Bass) plus two invited musicians (Piano/Accordion and Cello). The repertoire is mostly original, plus classic and traditional fados, reflecting on stage the art that faces the cumplicity between the musicians and the public.
Joana Amendoeira’s next album is due to be released in 2010 and its public presentation is scheduled for Belém Cultural Centrum (CCB) in Lisbon. 

www.joanaamendoeira.net  | www.myspace.com/joanamendoeira

HELDER MOUTINHO (Fado)
The critics talk of “the Fado soul that eludes so many others”. There is an emotion present in his voice that it is not contrived nor does it arise from a virtuoso display.
Helder Moutinho is a son of the Fado and the Portuguese Guitar, he has created the new Saudade, and he is the voice of modern Fado, Fado with a capital F, but he remains true to its tradition.
“Luzes da Cidade” is a show that takes the audience in an imaginary journey across a city, visiting all its emblematic places, and also the emotions and conditions of Life.

RODRIGO (Fado)
Rodrigo is more than tradition and popularity in the Fado scene. He’s also a living witness of the different paths this musical genre have known through its long existence. This is the impression one retains when we face a man of 68 years, humble and straigh, just like this song that along the time – and because of artists like him – have become one of the cultural icons of our culture. All this is reflected in the weight of the words, in the way he defends them, building a bunch of stories that make us think about the things of the past and the future, in order to find the most essencial: the present.
Supported by a conventional fado trio (portuguese guitar, viola and bass) Rodrigo invite us to understand fado in its essence, walking along the tradition and its more popular side, in a voyage through the great traditional fados and some of the great hits of his repertoire.
After 37 LP’s and CD’s (without counting the Singles and EP’s) and a career of fifty years, the singer is ready to launch a new album, inspired in his next concert: “50 years on stage”.

www.myspace.com/rodrigofado

ARGENTINA SANTOS (Fado)
Argentina Santos, the grand old lady of Fado, still runs her restaurant “Parreirinha de Alfama”, in Lisbon, at the age of eighty-four. Unlike other renowned women singers who, very young,  already sang for the public, Argentina only started her artistic career after the opening of that restaurant, where she went to work as a cook when she was 24 years old. After leaving the kitchen, Argentina walked round the tables, always asked to sing a fado. At “Parreirinha”, Argentina Santos sang with many fado singers who marked the history of fado, such as Berta Cardoso, Lucília do Carmo, Alfredo Marceneiro, Celeste Rodrigues, Mariana Silva, Natércia da Conceição, Natália Bizarro, Maria da Fé, Beatriz da Conceição, Fernanda Maria (who started her career there) Flora Pereira and Júlio Peres. Given the authenticity of her interpretations and a very personal style, she immediately imposed herself as one of the most gifted promising fado singers of her time, becoming since then, for the experts and fado melomaniacs, a trustworthy interpreter of the song, in the line of women singers of the past. Her debut record dates from 1960, but she stills recording and performing, like she did recently in the project “Cabelo Branco é Saudade” where she could be seen singing on stage with Celeste Rodrigues  among others.  

www.myspace.com/argentinasantos

CRISTINA BRANCO (Fado/Portuguese Music)
With regard to the life and music of Cristina Branco (1972), one could say – as in the lyrics of Amália Rodrigues – that she lives and breathes fado. It was a serendipitous set of circumstances that first brought fado music into Cristina’s life. Though, in a certain way, it was Cristina – with her aesthetic daring and unique interpretive style – who happened upon fado and in its most and deeply traditional musical and social form. Before entering the world of menores, mourarias and maiores, with her friends and later with adults, she was not in the habit of going to fado clubs or lçistening to recordings by the well-known singers. She knew some songs that her maternal grandfather used to sing by himself, lyrics and melodies that she would improvise on without realizing how they were entering her – and how they would decide her destinity.  But at that time she felt herself more drawn to Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Jani Joplin and Joni Mitchell, than Amália Rodrigues. Without seeking any sort of naive break  she instead searchcs for what is best in this tradition (listen to some of the classic songs she has recorded). Cristina Branco gives new life to this tradition with her originality. And in all her records she has sought to create a fruitful relationship between the lyrics and the innate musicality of fado. Cristina Branco creates all the emotion that this musical style – with its intimate relationship between voice, poetry and music – has to offer. Along other young musicians, who since the mid-1990’s, have found in fado their own way of expressing themselves (thereby contributing to an astonishing reinvigoration of the traditional song from Lisbon), Cristina Branco has begun to define her own journey in which respect for tradition walk hand in hand with a desire for innovation. Even if nothing in her early life indicated that Cristina’s destiny was in fado, it is clear today that she has created a style that is unprecedented and very possible unique.

www.cristinabranco.com | www.myspace.com/cristinabrancooficia

VANESSA ALVES (Fado)
Coming soon...

CASA DE FADOS (Fado)
Coming soon...

MARCO OLIVEIRA (Fado)
“Retrato” (portrait) it’s the name of Marco Oliveira’s first record, one of the most representative fado singers of his generation. In this case, the term “fadista” shouldn’t only apply to the interpreter, as the term is used by large audiences and fado travellers in the art of fado singing. Marco Oliveira is also a composer and that can be heard on his record in themes such as “Sabes lá (o que é ficar sozinho)”, “Noite da Saudade” ou “Lisboa será assim”.
But this is not all: Marco Oliveira is also one of the most remarkable “viola” (rhythm guitar) players of this new generation of musicians. Ana Moura, Raquel Tavares, Hélder Moutinho, Ricardo Parreira, Carlos do Carmo, among others, are witnesses of his musical skills.  With twenty years only and being born in the “millieu”, he is willing to offer it his freshness and, at same time, respect, although he is still a young man.
In his youth, Marco studied classic guitar at the conservatorium, while following the big school of fado in Lisbon, passing through the hidden places of the city, listening to the more important “fadistas” of other generations, drinking the essence of things and the “soul” of it, in order to become a fado singer with roots.
“Retrato” it’s the name of his record, but it’s also the concept of the concert that reflects him and the short life’s story that he wants to tell us. In the end, the story of our lifes, where we came from, where did we go and all that happens in between. To quote de songwriter: “The first day of the rest of our lifes”...

www.myspace.com/marcoandreoliveira

RICARDO PARREIRA (Portuguese Guitar)
Cancionário its the new record’s work and concert from the portuguese guitar player Ricardo Parreira. After his debut album “Nas veias de uma guitarra – Tributo a Fernando Alvim”, considered by the critics and experts as one of the most important documents dedicated to great composers in the history of the portuguese guitar, he now continues in a new voyage: a work based on fado, although more focused on traditional and popular portuguese music. This new record that will be followed by a new concert, has three invited voices, bass and percussions. It has rhythm, balance and diversity, in a voyage without sacrifice of our soul’s history: “We need to feel like dancing, even when we don’t want to do it...”
Ricardo Parreira is born in Paço de Arcos (Portugal) 23 years ago, amidst a family with bindings to fado and portuguese guitars. Son of António Parreira (actually, teacher at Fado Museum in Lisbon) and brother of Paulo Parreira, both renowned instrumentists, he started his lessons while he was very young, first under his father’s teaching, later at the Music Amateur’s Academy and the National Conservatorium.

Ricardo Parreira: portuguese guitar / Marco Oliveira: classic guitar (viola) and vocals / Yami: bass and vocals / Joaquim Teles (Quine): percussion and vocals / Micaela Vaz, Vânia Conde: vocals. 

www.myspace.com/ricardoparreira

FADOS DE AMOR E PECADO - with ANA SOFIA VARELA (Fado)
With a long, admired and respected career in the portuguese music, the composers’s duple João Gil (music) and João Monge (words) have endlessly visited popular music (Trovante, Ala dos Namorados), the rock, the pop and all the cross-overs in between. In some of their songs, they even flirted, sometimes faraway, sometimes closer, to the Fado (De Sol a Lua – Fado e Flamenco). Now, many years after that flirt began, it’s the right time to launch a fado’s record “Fados de Amor e Pecado”. A record (and concert) of fado that is real fado, with twelve fados made by both composers with love, even when they feel that – for many – they were commiting a sin. On the record, as the perfect companions of this adventure are: Ana Sofia Varela (voice), José Manuel Neto (portuguese guitar), Rogério Ferreira, Marco Oliveira and Diogo Clemente (violas), Zé Nabo and Ricardo Cruz (bass guitars). The recording, due to come out by the end of September, is from Iplay. The live presentation of the album was in 10th October, at CCB (Centro Cultural de Belém).

Ana Sofia Varela: Voice / Paulo Parreira: Portuguese Guitar / Carlos Manuel Proença: Viola /  Ricardo Cruz: Bass

www.myspace.com/anasofiavarela

NANCY VIERA (World Music / Cape-Verde)
The princess with the golden voice
To say that Nancy Vieira is a cape-verdean could be a form of justifying her innate musicality. From her way of being  and interpretation of things in life emerges a stream of emotions that go beyond the islands. In her voice there’s tenderness and subtletly, rhythm and strength, feeling and interpretation. Cape-Verde its inspiration. The cause and effect in her singing. The world is the auditorium and the integral part of a cultural miscellany that influences her. Nancy Vieira bring forth connection chains between Cape-Verde and sounds from other parts of the world, particularly from South America. On stage her voice leans on acoustic instruments, where simplicity and musical arrangements are a trademark. With three released records – Nôs Raça, Segred and Lus – Nancy Vieira has been performed around the world: In 2009, for the first time, she toured Holland and Belgium twice and last July, Lus was released by Harmonia Mundi/World Village label. In October she releases, together with Manuel Paulo, the CD “Pássaro Cego”, with poems by João Monge.

YAMI (World Music / Afro-European)
Born in Angola, but based in Portugal for many years, Yami is one of the most recent and beter examples of Lisbon’s multiculturalism in these last decade. In his music he mixes the angolan semba, the antillian souk, chorinho and brasilian’s samba influences, mozambican and cape-verdean music, jazz and pop.
Yami - who sings in portuguese and kimbundo language, one of the most spoken languages of Angola – honours in a modern and cosmopolitan way the lusophone territorium and all of its many musical genres. Singer, composer, guitar and bass player, Yami has been a steady musician of great names of the portuguese music, such as Carlos do Carmo, Dulce Pontes and the luso-cape-verdean Sara Tavares. Solo, he released the álbum “Aloelela”. Discover this record or the live version of it in the concerts of Yami.

www.myspace.com/yamimusica

MANUEL PAULO & NANCY VIEIRA (World Music Portugal/Cabo-Verde)
“Pássaro Cego” it’s the album’s title of a new musical formation where composer/piano player Manuel Paulo and Cape-Verde singer Nancy Vieira’s art merges with João Monge’s poetry. The record is due to be released in 2009.
The idea behind the conception of “Pássaro Cego” has to do with the creation of a serie of songs, with something in common, instead of a collection of isolated songs without a theme.
For the authors, Manuel Paulo and João Monge, a stimulating challenge, so they have a continuous-line in a script that guides you along the islands flown by a bird. Being blind, the bird flies using his senses and, in that way, he keeps recognizing the different islands. He stops above “the mother’s island”, “the island of the bodies”,  “the nostalgy island”, “the island of Babylon”, “the island of voices” or “the lover’s island”. There is a song for each island, besides a theme with the title “Pássaro Cego“ (Blind Bird).
Songs that gain a completly new dimension in the warm and expressive voice of Nancy Vieira.          

www.myspace.com/manuelpaulonancyvieira

MÔNICA SALMASO (Brasilian Popular Music)
Coming soon...

LES YEUX NOIRS (World Music)
Two Brothers….Six musicians…

During twelve years, LES YEUX NOIRS ("Black Eyes") have paved the way in gipsy music, supported by a growing public. Inspired by different influences, LES YEUX NOIRS weave their amazing magic, inviting us to share in moments of intense emotion and joy. LES YEUX NOIRS have expanded their base outside the usual cultural centre and theatre venues, conquering new spaces around the world: reggae, jazz and classic music, thus meeting different audiences. The band has been fulfilling their dreams and revealing their versatility.

GHALIA BENALI (World Music)
Ghalia Benali lives in Belgium where she was considered “the most beautiful discover” of the last years by the local critics. Her latest record, “Wild Harissa”, its an amazing mixture of arabian music with european traditions, going back to renaissance music and flamenco where atlantic rhythms of south american influences and even the portuguese guitar can be traced. Woman of convictions, Ghalia Benali says “this is arabian music with new forms, sometimes festive, never profane, occasionally romantic, even classical and mediaeval, sometimes wild and excessive. A passport to many cultures, an universum where the centuries come together to create something new”. She knows what she’s talking about. And the musicians who play with her, too.

www.myspace.com/ghaliabenaliofficial

www.myspace.com/ouronegro