Mariza - Ó Gente da Minha Terra

Olá my dear friends,

Marisa dos Reis Nunes known as Mariza was born at 16 December 1973 and is a popular fadista. She was born in Mozambique, but raised in Lisbon's historic quarters of Mouraria and Alfama with her Portuguese father and Mozambican mother. While very young she began singing in a wide variety of musical styles, including gospel, soul and jazz, but her father strongly encouraged her to adopt fado.

Her first album, Fado em mim, was released in 2001. It sold an astounding 100,000 copies when 4,000 copies of a fado disc would have been considered successful in such a small country. After this the record company made the disc available worldwide, and sales eventually topped 140,000 copies. After this success she released 4 more studio albums, 2 live albums and 3 DVD.

In this video she sings “Ó Gente da Minha Terra”, a poem by Amália Rodrigues and music by Tiago Machado.

Check out her official web page for more information and find out where you can see her. Maybe she is going to your home town.

From Portugal,
with love

Fado - Intangible Heritage of Humanity

Olá my dear friends,

Have you ever heard about fado?

Fado means fate and is a music genre which can be traced to the 1820s in Portugal, but probably with much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar Rui Vieira Nery states that "the only reliable information on the history of Fado was orally transmitted and goes back to the 1820s and 1830s at best. The music is usually linked to the sea and the Portuguese word saudade which symbolizes the feeling of loss.

On 27 November 2011, Fado was inscribed in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists. You can see the application on the video above as well as the history of fado in only 10 minutes.

The next video is a representation of a “Casa de Fados” usually small taverns or restaurants where you can ear fado. The fadistas singing are Vicente da Câmara, Maria da Nazaré, Ana Sofia Varela, Carminho, Ricardo Ribeiro and Pedro Moutinho.

Check out the board Music at my Pinterest page for more fado songs, some of them with English subtitles.

From Portugal,
with love