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MARIZA – PORTUGAL’S QUEEN OF FADO IN WROCŁAW

Mariza returns to Wrocław at Ethno Jazz Festival’s invitation, performing at the National Forum of Music on 30 November. She is considered the greatest star of fado, Portugal’s national treasure. Her voice is described as “magical, diamond-like, magnetic”, and her popularity compared to opera’s most famous divas and pop/rock megastars. Her repertoire primarily features traditional and contemporary fado, but she also readily embraces Cape Verdean mornas and blues standards close to her heart.

MARIZA – PORTUGAL’S QUEEN OF FADO IN WROCŁAW
MARIZA – PORTUGAL’S QUEEN OF FADO IN WROCŁAW

30 NOVEMBER 2024

Over more than 15 years in music, Mariza has grown from a local phenomenon known to a small circle of fado lovers in Lisbon into one of the world's best-known and most admired world music stars. She has released six original albums — “Fado em Mim”, “Fado Curvo”, “Transparente”, “Terra”, “Fado Tradicional” and “Mundo” — and received numerous awards, including a Latin Grammy.

In 2007, she worked with leading musicians and producers including Jacques Morelenbaum, Gilberto Gil, Ivan Lins, Lenny Kravitz, Cesária Évora, Tito Paris and Sting, with whom she performed the 2004 Athens Games anthem, A Thousand Years.

Mariza has proved herself a world-class artist of extraordinary talent, with much to offer. A young girl from Mozambique, raised near Lisbon's famous Mouraria district, she reached into her country's musical roots and became an artist transcending world music while retaining her national identity and Portuguese sensitivity.

MARIZA – BIOGRAPHY

20 years of a career, 20 years of music. 20 years of a journey that began quietly, as an almost hidden local phenomenon known only to a small circle of admirers in Lisbon. It is a journey that has made Mariza one of world music’s most applauded stars, admired for her extraordinary voice and a true ambassador for fado. She never hesitates to follow bold new paths while keeping its soul firmly in sight.

No Portuguese artist since Amália Rodrigues has built an international career with comparable success, triumphing repeatedly on the world's most prestigious stages, earning enthusiastic reviews from the most demanding music critics and receiving an endless succession of international awards and honours.

As always, only the finest musicians partner her: Jacques Morelenbaum and John Mauceri, José Merced and Miguel Poveda, Gilberto Gil and Ivan Lins, Lenny Kravitz and Sting, Cesária Évora and Tito Paris, Vanesa Martín and Sergio Dalma, Rui Veloso and Carlos do Carmo. Her repertoire remains firmly rooted in classical and contemporary fado but has expanded to Cape Verdean mornas, rhythm-and-blues classics and any other melodies close to her heart.

It all began with her debut album, “Fado em Mim”, released in 2001, which quickly led to a string of successful international appearances: Quebec’s Summer Festival, where she received the Most Outstanding Performance award, Central Park in New York, the Hollywood Bowl, the Royal Festival Hall and Womad. It ultimately earned her the BBC Radio 3 Award for Best European Artist in World Music. “Fado em Mim” already revealed a strong artistic personality. Mariza interpreted several songs from Amália’s repertoire so personally that any suggestion of mere imitation was easily dismissed. Among her original material, “Ó Gente da minha Terra”, by young composer Tiago Machado, soon became a huge success. Her first album achieved 6-times platinum status.

Her second album, “Fado Curvo”, appeared in 2003 and once again went six times platinum. With the help of excellent arrangements by Carlos Maria Trindade, it marked a further step towards establishing her personal style and repertoire. Amália remained present through her iconic “Primavera”, set to a poem by David Mourão Ferreira, as did José Afonso, an icon of democratic opposition to Salazar’s regime in the sixties and seventies. Many of the other songs were new and inspiring.

“Fado Curvo” reached number 6 on Billboard World Music and received the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis and European Border Breakers Award at MIDEM in 2004. Mariza’s public appearances multiplied, bringing major personal triumphs at London’s Royal Festival Hall, Frankfurt’s Alte Oper, Paris’s Théâtre de la Ville, Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Madrid’s Teatro Albéniz and Barcelona’s Teatre Grec.

Her style can be seen on the “Live in London” DVD, recorded during a recital at Union Chapel in March 2003. It clearly demonstrates her impressive vocal abilities and growing confidence on stage. In 2004, Lisbon’s mayor appointed her, alongside Carlos do Carmo, an ambassador for fado’s nomination to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, which UNESCO approved in November 2011.

2005 was particularly significant artistically for Mariza. She received the Amália Rodrigues Foundation’s Best Performer award, became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and released her third studio album, “Transparente”. Going quadruple platinum, it revealed a more mature personality, so confident vocally that she could fully display her abilities with impressive composure and intelligence, articulating lyrics even more expressively.

She also found an opportunity to honour three great fadistas with whom she feels deep artistic and personal kinship: Amália; Fernando Maurício, with whom she often sang in Mouraria, where both lived; and Carlos do Carmo, whose advice Mariza has always considered an important influence on her artistic personality.

The CD and DVD of her landmark Lisbon concert in September 2005, accompanied by Sinfonieta de Lisboa under Morelenbaum himself, were released in 2006 and achieved a combined 5 platinum awards. That same year, Portugal's president Jorge Sampaio awarded her the rank of Commander of the Order of Prince Henry.

From that point, Mariza’s career enjoyed still greater success, with constant appearances on the world’s leading stages: the Olympia in Paris, the Frankfurt Opera, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Le Carré in Amsterdam, Barcelona’s Palau de la Música, the Sydney Opera House, New York’s Carnegie Hall and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. For the last of these, Frank Gehry himself specially designed the stage setting.

In 2007, she was one of the main stars of Spanish director Carlos Saura’s “Fados”, screened in almost a hundred countries, and the subject of “Mariza and the History of Fado”, a documentary produced for the BBC by music critic Simon Broughton. The following year, she played a significant part in Portuguese public television’s first documentary series on the history of fado, “Trovas Antigas, Saudade Louca”, narrated by Carlos do Carmo and written by Rui Vieira Nery.

2008 also brought her fourth album, “Terra”, made under the musical direction of José Limón. It gathered the new repertoire Mariza had been performing on recent tours, including hits such as “Alfama” and “Rosa Branca” and tracks recorded with Tito Paris, Concha Buika, Ivan Lins and Dominic Miller. “Terra” has already achieved Triple Platinum status.

The year 2010 brought the very special project “Fado Tradicional”, which achieved Double Platinum status. Mariza once again affirmed her commitment to the most authentic tradition of classical fado, revisiting some of the genre’s greatest composers, including Alfredo Marceneiro, while bringing a distinctly personal and contemporary interpretation. In the same year, the French government appointed her a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters.

Best Of was released in 2014 and also achieved triple-platinum status. The album brought together her most significant songs and included three new recordings, one of them “O Tempo Não Pára”. Mariza also recorded Charlie Chaplin's “Smile” with Ivan Lins. In 2015, she released “Mundo”, which went double platinum and reached number 1 in the charts.

Listen and watch

Mariza — Gente da Minha Terra (Concerto em Lisboa)

Event details

MARIZA

Date

30 November 2024

19:00

Venue

NATIONAL FORUM OF MUSIC