Cristina Branco was born on December 28, 1972 in in the village of Almeirim, Portugal. Her grandfather had fled the dictatorship of Salazar and she was raised in Almeirim, in the Ribatejo countryside north of Lisbon, away from the traditional Bairro Alto fado houses of the Portuguese capital.
As each and every young Portuguese person of her generation, born during the Pink Revolution, she preferred jazz, blues or bossa nova rather than the traditional fado singing. “My ears were turned toward so many different rhythms and styles,” Cristina said, “that fado made no sense compared with the capabilities of other music.”
She fell in love with fado on her eighteenth birthday, when her grandfather presented her with a record of unpublished songs of Amalia Rodrigues. Suddenly she discovered the passion and emotion within the music and the close ties linking poems, music and voice.
The same applies to a whole new generation of young musicians who in the past decades have contributed to the social and political restoration of the music, adapting it to and blending with new trends.
Little by little, this amateur singer who studied psychology and thought about forging a career in journalism, took advanced courses in vocal technique and took up her new vocation. Cristina Branco’s stage debut in a Dutch club brought immediate success (first in the Netherlands, then in France) and spawned the release of her album Live in Holland in the Netherlands.
In 1999, her first widely released album, Murmurios was unanimously praised by critics and awarded the Choc de l’année du Monde de la Musique in the World Music entry. Murmurios was followed by O Descobridor.
Post-Scriptum, released in 2000, Post-Scriptum, was again the Choc de l’année du Monde de la Musique thus confirming the promising and dazzling start of the young fado singer. Her art is completely linked to the stage by her presence, both restrained and sensuous, radiating over the audience. Her voice literally entrances the hall. Cristina Branco has now sung in every major scene of World music: in Lisbon, in the famous Belém neighborhood, at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, at the Theâtre des Abbesses in Paris and at the magnificent Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, where the exceptional acoustics allowed her to sing without amplification.
Cristina Branco has also performed in Belgium, Germany, Spain and Italy. In January, 2001, she made her American debut in New York. The art of Cristina Branco is inseparable from that of Custodio Castelo, her husband. He plays the Portuguese guitar and composes most of the fados she sings. His sense of melody, the subtlety of the connections he achieves between words and music and his instinctive understanding of Cristina’s tones are all integral ingredients of the expressive fado.
Fados convey passionate moods with the famous ‘saudade,’ the fatalistic sadness inherited from the country’s maritime past, alternating with subtle, light episodes, to create a unique and haunting atmosphere. One cannot but recognize Cristina Branco’s style within the genre. Guitar, Portuguese guitar and bass guitar blended with a voice, both warm and light, create mesmerizing traditional fados and original pieces.
The words are carefully chosen pieces from famous poets (such as Pessoa) and the not-so-famous, so Cristina is on the edge of modern Portuguese culture. In 2000, she dedicated a whole album to a Dutch poet of the beginning of the 20th century, Jan Jacob Slauerhoff, who had known Portugal, loved it and written about it. Released only in the Netherlands, the album has gone platinum.
Corpo Iluminado, released in 2001, brought Cristina international recognition and put a face to the more modern, blues-inflected fado style that has become her signature sound. Her sound continued to evolve with Sensus (2004) a graceful blend of Cristina’s former albums, along with her experiences in life, on stage, and in the studio.
From there, Cristina embarked on the next voyage other musical journey with Ulisses (2006). Along the way, she was fortunate to find some outstanding traveling companions. On this journey, Cristina moved beyond the acoustic frontier with the piano playing of Ricardo Dias. He gave new color to Cristina’s titles, and also played one of the most beautiful original works on the album, the composition “Navio Triste.” Joining Dias were Cristina’s usual companions: Castelo on the Portuguese guitar (in homage to his spiritual master, Carlos Paredes, Castelo plays on the guitar owned by Paredes, who passed away in 2005); Alexandre Silva on the Spanish guitar; Fernando Maia on the bass guitar; and finally, Miguel Carvalhinho on classical guitar, a guest performer on “Choro”.
Ulisses, is more than just a collection of beautiful songs: It is a journey. This journey gently picks up where her 2004 album, Sensus left off, taking the listener on a pastoral voyage of love, leaving, and returning. Throughout Ulisses, Christina gracefully intertwined the myth of Ulysses with the Portuguese idea of ‘Saudade” — a feeling of longing for something you are fond of that is gone but might someday return.
Cristina’s Ulissesinvites the listener to travel with her, to explore this longing in places throughout her native Portugal, and in other lands that have brought her a sense of melancholy. “Ulisses was a challenge,” Cristina said, “full of comings and goings, stories of lives, long trips –sometimes inside of us, voyages in love, paths rejoined.”
As the various lands are explored, so, too, are the languages of those lands. Cristina takes the listener to Argentina for “Alfonsina y el Mar,” sung in Spanish; to the United States for the reprise of “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell; to France for the musical adaptation of “Liberte,” the poem by Paul Eluard, sung in French; and even to Africa for a moving rendition of “Choro,” which features the music of composer Custodio Castelo, inspired by African rhythms and colors.
Cristina and her musicians have long been interpreting “Choro” on stage, but Ulisses offered the first recorded cut of this song. The Portuguese musical tradition called “fado” was born of the mixed-race population in Lisbon. Fado musically reflects the city’s African and Brazilian heritage, with songs built around poems, often utilizing a 12-string Portuguese guitar and a six-string Spanish guitar.
Discography:
In Holland (Live) (Circulo De Cultura Portuguesa Na Holanda, 1997)
Murmúrios (Music & Words, 1998)
Canta Slauerhoff (Harmonia Mundi, 2000)
Post-Scriptum (L’Empreinte Digitale, 2000)
Corpo Iluminado (Universal, 2001)
Sensus (Universal, 2003)
Ulisses (Universal, 2004)
Live (Universal, 2006)
Perfil (Som Livre, 2007)
Abril (Universal Music, 2007)
Kronos (Universal Music, 2009)
Fado – Tango (Universal Music, 2013)
Menina (Universal Music Portugal, 2016)
Branco (Universal Music Portugal, 2018)
Author: Angel Romero
Angel Romero y Ruiz has dedicated his life to musical exploration. His efforts included the creation of two online portals, worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. In addition, Angel is the co-founder of the Transglobal World Music Chart, a panel of world music DJs and writers that celebrates global sounds. Furthermore, he delved into the record business, producing world music studio albums and compilations. His works have appeared on Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Indígena Records and Music of the World.