Ricardo Rocha is unanimously considered the best Portuguese guitar player of his generation. Rocha plays several instruments (Portuguese and classical guitar and piano) and also composes pieces for other singers and musicians.
He divides his career between well known fado houses (Taverna do Embufado and Velho Pateo de Santana) and performances with other artists. Rocha has been playing with popular Portuguese performers like Maria Ana Bobone, Maria Joao, Joao Paulo Esteves da Silva and Amelia Muge.
Discography:
Luz Destino (MA Recordings, 1996)
Voluptuária (Vachier & Associados, 2003)
Tributo À Guitarra Portuguesa (Corda Seca, 2004)
Luminismo (Mbari Musica, 2009)
Resplandecente – Quartetos E Solos Para Guitarra Portuguesa (Mbari Musica, 2014)
Gaiteiros de Lisboa is a folk-traditional-world band of multi-talented musicians who got together around a sonorous project that stands on the constant search for new sounds. This has leaded the group to the creation of original instruments such as Tubaros d’Orpheu, Tubaroes, Orgaz, Cabecadecompressorofone, Clarinete acabacado and Serafina. Their experimental attitude sets up a bridge between Tradition and Modernity. by blending traditional styles with contemporary sensibilities.
The group has started out in 1991 as a street animation group. After several changes, it is presently formed by Carlos Guerreiro (voice, sanfona, panflutes, tubaros de Orfeu, buzio, percussion); Jose Salgueiro (voice, flugel, panflutes, tubaros de Orfeu, búzio or conch shell, percussion), Rui Vaz (voice, gaita, ocarina, panflutes, percussion), Pedro Casaes (voice, panflutes, percussion), Jose Manuel David (voice, trompa or French horn, gaita, flutes, percussion), Paulo Marinho (gaitas, flute, svina, panflutes, buzio, percussion) and Paulo Charneca (percussions, tubaroes).
They have played with the most important Portuguese musicians and bands having backgrounds in different genders such as rock, jazz, pop, folk, classical and early music.
A rising star in the new fado generation, Moutinho became popular in the 1990s after releasing his first album called Sete Fados e Alguns Cantos.
Helder Moutinho was born in 1969, in Oeiras, where the Tagus River meets the Ocean, and maybe it was from this daily intimacy with the sea that came the major characteristic of his career: a multiple capacity of understanding and living his music, by singing, composing, producing, managing, constantly probing wider horizons, of solid and neat banks and rich, steady stream. From his family of old fado lovers, and from accompanying them to the traditional fado circles, he got not only his taste for this kind of song, but above all his determination to sing it, and so entering in fado’s unique universe.
It was in Moutinho’s late teens that, after getting familiar to other musical styles, fado began to take an increasing importance in his life. This is perhaps the reason to explain his enduring, inevitable relation with Lisbon. After the lifelong calling of the sea, now is Tagus River that requests him, revealing him Lisbon, the city of passions, of poetic and nostalgic nights, of high flying gulls that he will forever on sing and write about. He initially sang only to friends, but his gift could not remain hidden, and he soon got his first invitation to sing in one of Bairro Alto’s fado bars.
By this time, Moutinho’s all latent talents began to show themselves. In reunions of fado singers, all night long, among other fado lovers, he began to sing his own lyrics that he would later include in his first album, Sete Fados e Alguns Cantos (Seven Fados and Some Songs). Concurrently, Helder Moutinho began revealing himself in other and important activities: those of a manager, agent and music editor. The transition from singing in fado bars and in concerts – one must mention his participation in projects organized by Lisbon City Hall and included in “Lisbon 94 – European Capital of Culture”, the Festima Festival at “Expo’ 98”, along with performances throughout Portugal and abroad – is a process that Moutinho himself can’t explain – but soon the stress-free approach of his beginnings turned to become a deeper, compromised one. His first record, released by Ocarina in 1999, got flattering notice from magazine “Strictly Mundial” (of the “World Music International Exibition”), and very good reviews from Portuguese and international press.
Joana Amendoeira is a New Generation fado singer. Through her voice, fado reaches unique, sublime moments, powered by her sensuous and moving harmonies.
Amendoeira was born in Santarem, Portugal in 1982. Her singing style is classic and traditional, yet her unique vocals bring a bright, new glow to fado.
In 1994, a young Amendoeira participated in the Lisbon Grand Fado Gala, where she received enthusiastic praise from the jury and the audience. In the following year, she won the Female Interpreter Award at the Oporto Gala. From that date on, she has been performing non-stop around Portugal and the world. Some of her favorite experiences include traveling to Budapest to perform in front of a remote Portuguese community, performing with fado legend Carlos do Carmo at the Radio Alpha Auditorium in Paris, and her first time in the Americas as a headliner at the Commemorations of the 500th Anniversary of the Discovery of Brazil.
Four years later her first album was released: 1998’s Olhos Garotos (Playful Eyes), thereby giving her the honor of being the youngest fado singer with a published CD. Her second CD followed shortly thereafter in 2000, when Aquela Rua (That Street) was released to outstanding reviews. This was also the year that Amendoeira began singing regularly at Clube de Fado (The Fado Club), one of most renowned fado houses in Lisbon.
Joana Amendoeira
Her growing international acclaim brought the fadista to more corners of the world, receiving invitations to sing in Japan, Moscow and Holland (at the prestigious Muziekcentrum Vredenburg). Meanwhile, back in her homeland of Portugal, Amendoeira was asked to take part in some of the top fado anthologies, such as Novas Vozes, Novos Fados (New Voices, New Fados) and Nova Biografia do Fado (Fado’s New Biography). She also contributed to the Moniz Pereira homage album, as well as the soundtrack to the TV series Joia de Africa (African Jewel).
In 2003, her third CD, the self-titled Joana Amendoeira, received enthusiastic praise from fado devotees, reviewers and audiences alike. The album?s promotional tour sent Amendoeira once again through Europe, this time performing in Spain, France and Austria, to name a few. The tour also brought her to Canada for the first time, where she performed at Montreal’s Strictly Mundial.
Amendoeira achieved further success when she received the 2004 Revelation Award from Casa da Imprensa (The Portuguese Press Association). That same year she presented her first solo show at one of Lisbon’s oldest and most illustrious stages: The Sao Luiz Theatre. This performance would later be turned into her first live album, Ao Vivo Em Lisboa (Live in Lisbon), released in July 2005.
Discography:
Olhos Garotos (Espacial, 1998) Aquela Rua (Espacial, 2000)
Joana Amendoeira (Companhia Nacional De Música, 2003)
Ao Vivo em Lisboa (Companhia Nacional De Música, 2005) À Flor da Pele (HM Musica, 2006)
Joana Amendoeira & Mar Ensemble (HM Musica, 2008) Sétimo Fado (Nosso Fado, 2010)
Amor Mais Perfeito (Tributo a José Fontes Rocha) (Companhia Nacional De Música, 2012) Muito Depois (Companhia Nacional De Música, 2016)
Jorge Fernando celebrated his 25 years in show business in May 2000 with a celebrity concert in Lisbon’s Tivoli theatre. He was 16 when he became a professional fado singer and guitarist. Jorge Fernando toured more than 5 years the world when Carlos Goncalves asked him to join the band of Amália Rodriguez.
His first solo success happened in 1983 when he performed at the RTP festival with the song “Brancas Para O Meu Amor” which earned him a record deal. In 1985 Fernando performed again at the RTP festival and the song “Umbada” became a number one hit for several months in the Portuguese hit parade.
These days Jorge Fernando is considered as one of the most important male fado singers and writer/composer in Portugal. He released several successful albums in Portugal in his long spanning career.
Discography:
Enamorado (EMI, 1986)
Coisas da Vida (EMI, 1988)
Boa Noite Solidão (Polygram, 1989)
À Tua Porta (Polygram, 1991)
Oxála (Polygram, 1993) Terra d’Água (Movieplay, 1997)
Rumo ao Sul (Movieplay, 1999)
Inéditos ao Vivo No Tivoli (Popular/VC, 2000) Velho Fado (World Connection, 2002)
Memória e Fado (Som Livre, 2005)
Vida (Farol, 2009)
Chamam-Lhe Fado (Farol, 2012) De Mim Para Mim (Glam Music, 2018)
Even though he’s been involved in traditional and folk music since the early 1970s, José Medeiros was, for some time, mostly known by his award-winning film-making for the television in the Azores. Later re-discovered as a singer and composer, he was part of the revival of folk music in the islands.
For his stunning and powerful singing, Medeiros was called too often the Portuguese Tom Waits. His songs are strongly rooted in the tradition, and reflect both the deepness and the nostalgia of the islander feeling.
Discography:
ala-bote! (DisRego, 1986)
Balada Do Atlântico (Disrego, 1987)
O Feiticeiro Do Vento – Rtp Açores (DisRego, 1995)
Cinefilias E Outras Incertezas (Memórias, 1999)
Fados, Fantasmas E Folias (Algarpalcos, 2010)
Katia Guerreiro was born in South Africa in 1977. At a very early age, she went to the Azores, where she lived till she was eighteen. It was precisely in the Azores that Katia became interested in music, having started to sing and to play local guitar in Santa Cecília’s Folklore Group. Afterwards, Katia Guerreiro moved to the Portuguese mainland, where she continued her university studies. She graduated in Medicine in 2001.
Katia has one of the most beautiful voices in the fado circuit nowadays, plus great vocal skills and an excellent domain of the Fado’s technique. Katia sings fado in an authentic and passionate way.
In 2001 Katia Guerreiro participated in a tribute concert to Amalia Rodrigues, in the Coliseum of Lisboa, broadcast by TV. She sung some of the songs of the great Fado singer Amália Rodrigues. At the end, the audience applauded enthusiastically and the reviews were unanimous in giving special emphasis to Katia Guerreiro, among the eighteen participants of the concert.
Her album Fado Maior was nominated for the 2002 Prémio José Afonso award.
Discography:
Fado Maior (Ocarina, 2001) Nas Mãos Do Fado (Ocarina, 2003) Tudo Ou Nada (Le Chant Du Monde, 2005) Fado (Sony Music, 2008)
Os Fados Do Fado (JBJ & Viceversa, 2009)
10 Anos – Nas Asas Do Fado (2010)
Património (2012) Até Ao Fim (Uau, 2014)
Born in Lisbon in 1975, Lura discovered her Cape Verdean identity (while remaining fully Portuguese) through the Creole she learned with her friends at school. As a child, she wanted to be a dancer. Later, she taught swimming. Finally, music drew her from the swimming pool.
Her first eponymous album with the famous song “Nha vida” was released in Lisbon on the 31st July 1996, her 21st birthday. Lura’s extraordinary voice shines on this record, which includes some of the greatest performers in the Portuguese-speaking world: Marisa Monte, Caetano Veloso, Teresa Salgueiro, Filipa Pais, Djavan and Bonga.
In 2002, Lura released her second album, In Love, with the Lusafrica label. She wrote seven of the twelve songs.
Lura’s 2004 album, Di Korpu Ku Alma (Of body and soul) fully justifies one’s most optimistic predictions.
Discography:
Nha Vida (Sons d’africa, 1996)
In Love (Lusafrica, 2002) Di Korpu Ku Alma (Lusafrica, 2005) M’bem di fora (Lusafrica, 2006) Eclipse (Lusafrica, 2009) Herança (Lusafrica, 2015)
Mário Pacheco (not to be confused with Spaniard Mario Pacheco, owner and acclaimed producer of innovative flamenco label Nuevos Medios) is counted as one of Portugal’s best guitarra portuguesa players and is the composer to many hits for both Mariza and Misia.
Mario Pacheco?s guitar playing is the result of dedication, hard work and a special love of music and fado in particular, rooted in a family tradition. His fados are performed by Carlos Zel, Paulo Braganca, Paulo de Carvalho, Joana Amendoeira and Misia.
On the album and DVD A M?sica e a Guitarra (2007) the following special guests give their interpretation of his melodies: Mariza, Rodrigo Costa Felix, Ana Sofia Varela and Camane.
Simon Shaheen is one of the most significant Arab musicians, performers, and composers of his generation. His work incorporates and reflects a legacy of Arabic music, while it forges ahead to new frontiers, embracing many different styles in the process. This unique contribution to the world of arts was recognized in 1994 when Shaheen was honored with the prestigious National Heritage Award.
In the 1990s he released four albums of his own: Saltanah (Water Lily Acoustics), Turath (CMP), Taqasim (Lyrichord), and The Music of Mohamed Abdel Wahab (Axiom), while also contributing cuts to producer Bill Laswell’s fusion collective, Hallucination Engine (Island). He arranged and re-recorded the smash remake of the Latin singer Soraya’s song, “I’m Yours,” released on the compilation Desert Roses and Arabian Rhythms.
He has contributed selections to soundtracks for The Sheltering Sky and Malcolm X, among others, and has composed the entire soundtrack for the United Nations-sponsored documentary, For Everyone Everywhere. Broadcast globally in December 1998, this film celebrated the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Human Rights Charter.
But perhaps his greatest success has come with Blue Flame (ARK21, 2001), where he leads his group, Qantara, on a labyrinthine journey through the world of fusion music to discover the heart of the Middle East. With Qantara he also recorded Two Tenors & Qantara: Historic Live Recording of Arabic Masters
Shaheen: Tradition and Creativity – A Heritage without Boundaries
Story by Kay Hardy Campbell (From the ARAMCO WORLD MAGAZINE May/June 1996. Reproduced by courtesy of Aramco World Magazine)
All day the Brooklyn Museum had rung with the rhythms of Arab musicians, the verses of poets and the background buzz of crowds in conversation. So when Simon Shaheen appeared on stage late in the afternoon, the quiet that settled around him was his audience’s way of acknowledging a special maestro. Shaheen ran this fingers through his dark wavy hair, lifted his violin and bow and locked eyes with each of the 16 musicians in his Near Eastern Music Ensemble.
Inspired by the Arab-American music and dance festivals that flourished from the 1930’s to the 1950’s, Shaheen organized last fall’s Mahrajan al-Fan, or festival of art, a weekend extravaganza of Arab-American culture. Booths from Arab restaurants, henna-painting lessons, folk dance, and a show of traditional Arab costumes framed performances by Arab-American musicians, poets, authors, filmmakers, and scholars. They came to Brooklyn from around the country to give visitors and each otheran exciting vision of the Arab cultures of their homelands, from Morocco to the Arabian Peninsula.
But as Simon Shaheen drew his bow into the haunting measures of his best-known composition, “Sama’i Kurd Shaheen,” his role as festival organizer and fundraiser fell away, and the hall was filled with the musical gifts that have made 40-year-old Shaheen one of the brightest, fastest rising stars in Arab music.
Shaheen’s musical journey began, in a sense, even before he was born in Tarshiha, in the Galilee. His family was full of instrumentalists and singers.
“My grandfather was the principal singer in the church, and he also sang the classical Arab music repertoire,” he says. Shaheen’s father, Hikmat Shaheen, was a well-known player of the ‘ud the pear-shaped, short-necked, fretless forerunner of the European lute as well as a composer, educator, and founder of two regional orchestras.
At seven Shaheen began eight years of study of western classical music in Haifaby age 12 his father had him help run the orchestra. “I did all the rehearsals and arranged everything, while he supervised,” Shaheen says.
And at night, he says, the family would listen to the radio, where the airwaves were full of great Arab music, for those were the days of the famous Thursday-night broadcasts on Egyptian Radio’s “Voice of the Arabs.” The whole Arab world came to a halt to hear Umm Kalthum sing live full-length concerts to the big orchestral compositions of Riyad al-Sunbati, Mohamed Abdel Wahhab and others.
Umm Kalthum “used to come on the air on the first Thursday of each month,” Shaheen recalls with a smile. “I always remembered much of any new song she sang. The next morning I would hum the introduction and different parts for my father, and he would notate them.”
Shaheen went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in literature and music from the Academy of Music in Jerusalem, where he later taught. Yet “my real education,” he says, “was working with my father.”
Since he came to the United States in 1980 to pursue graduate studies in music, of course Simon Shaheen has made New York City his base for both the preservation of traditional Arab music and the exploration of artistic frontiers. Now, he is increasingly regarded as one of the most dynamic musical links between the Arab world and the West.
A fast-paced concert schedule brings him and the Near Eastern Music Ensemble to stages throughout North America and Europe. He is a master teacher of the ‘ud and violin as well as a popular lecturer. He composes both alone and in collaboration with others. But most important, Shaheen is increasingly looked upon as an inspiration.
“He has so much love for Arab music that you cannot escape it,” says ensemble soloist Ghada Ghanim. “Even if you are in the audience or just passing by, his enthusiasm will grab you!”
As a performer on both violin and ‘ud, Shaheen conquers complex phrases with mesmerizing frenzy and caresses others with quiet tenderness. He draws from a deep well of technique, applies it creatively, and metes out expression in deliberately tantalizing measure.
In 1994 Shaheen was awarded one of 11 National Heritage Fellowship Awards for outstanding contributions to traditional music. The New York Daily News has called his interpretations “some of the most sublime Arab music to be heard this side of the Dead Sea.” In February, he played a concert of traditional and original music as part of Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series.
Shaheen “combines technique with feeling,” says ethnomusicologist, composer and performer Ali Jihad Racy (See Aramco World, September/October 1995). “He is the product of two traditions. Conservatory-trained, he has one foot in western classical music, the other at the center of the Arab musical tradition. This is very unusual.”
Shaheen is also a master of taqasim, or improvisations. Arab instrumentalists use taqasim to explore a maqam, a scale or mode, with a series of musical phrases that the performer strings like pearls on a strand of pauses. Shaheen’s improvisations “invoke all the possible wealth of the maqam and rhythm,” says poet and musician Mansour Ajami. In a collaborative 1983 recording titled Taqasim, Shaheen playfully traded improvisation on the ‘ud with Racy on the buzuq, the ‘ud’s long-necked cousin.
Likewise, modal shifts and unexpected rhythmic phrases fill his popular compositions, such as “Sama’i Kurd Shaheen.” The resulting level of invention within traditional form is unrivaled among today’s composers. In its third verse he changes the maqam an astonishing six times, and only at the very last moment does he bring the melody back to kurd, the “home” maqam for which the piece is named. In the last verse, he bursts out of the base 10/8 rhythm, not into the sama’i’s traditional 3/4 or 6/8 closing rhythm, but into what proves to be a thrilling, unusual 7/8.
Shaheen’s traditional arrangements and compositions appear on two recordings. The Music of Mohamed Abdel Wahab is Shaheen’s tribute to the late Egyptian composer and consists largely of Shaheen’s orchestrations of Abdel Wahhab’s music. “Turath” (“Heritage”) is Shaheen’s compilation of classical Arab ensemble music. The Library of Congress named it one of the outstanding traditional recordings of 1992. By late 1995, Shaheen had three further recordings in progress.
Ever since he was a boy, Shaheen’s artistic openness and gregarious personality have propelled him across cultural boundaries, and in New York, he has delighted in the city’s trove of artistic possibilities. “I have preserved my artistry, the traditional Arab and western classical repertoire, in New York,” he says. “At the same time, I’ve been exposed to many ideas. I have met many musicians in New York who have widened my perspective.”
He is one of several jazz artists who make up the experimental fusion group Material, which appears on the Axiom label. Rolling Stone called Material’s 1994 Hallucination Engine. “One groovy om of exhilaration and release.” Shaheen left a strong imprint on the group’s “The Hidden Garden/Naima”, and “Ruins,” both of which blended Arabic vocals and instrumentals with western rock, jazz and classical elements. Another fusion recording, with Indian slide guitarist Vishwa Bhatt and titled Saltanah, is forthcoming on the Water Lily Acoustics label.
As a teacher of students of both Arab and non-Arab backgrounds, Shaheen reaches out to help them grasp the sensibility and structure of Arab music. William Nakhly, the Galilee-born conductor of Boston’s Middle East Orchestra and Chorus, pursuing a doctorate of music in the United States, says that he and many other young Palestinian musicians emulate Shaheen’s ensemble concepts. They collect tapes of his rehearsals and his live performances, he says, to study his work more closely.
“I think Simon is having a great impact,” says Racy. “The culture needs a role model who combines tradition, authenticity and creativity, someone who combines roots with innovation. Simon thinks deeply about his music. He has true sensitivity to it as a culture, as a legacy, as a message, and he is conscious of the importance of this musical message.”
The coming years will no doubt see Shaheen’s work bear further fruit as his global audience widens. Two sold-out concerts in January in Haifa, played in honor of his father, featured his recent compositions, “Long Kurd Shaheen” and “Al Cantra.” His debut in Lebanon, scheduled for this year, will mark the fulfillment of his personal dream to perform, at last, in Beirut.
Beyond recording and composing, Shaheen is exploring the possible foundation of an Arab arts institute in New York. But his greatest hope, he says, is to make music “that people will view as sincere and without boundaries.” Music “should become the heritage, the turath, of whatever community you belong to. For music to be truly successful, it has to be within the realm of turath.”
As Shaheen carries his reinvigorated legacy to a new generation, it is easy to imagine he will reach his goal.
What to Listen For: Simon Shaheen has some advice for those listening to Arab music for the first time. “Think with your voice when you listen to Arab music. It has a linear quality like the voice. Concentrate on its melodies, and listen to how they interact with the rhythm. Arab music is characterized by the use of quarter-tones, which lie between the half-steps of western music. They have a quality that you may not be able to hear at first. Don’t think of them as out-of-tune notes. They are deliberate. The more you listen, the more you will begin to hear them and come to love them, for it is the quarter-tones which distinguish many beautiful maqams in Arabic music.”
While a seven-year resident of Saudi Arabia, Kay Hardy Campbell wrote for the Arab News and the Saudi Gazette. She lives near Boston, where she plays the ‘ud with the Middle East Orchestra and Chorus.
