PORTUGAL is known for its Madeira cake, wine, Vasco Da Gama and, of course, football, especially after that Euro final last year. But there is one more thing Portuguese that Cyprus will get to see and hear in June, live. The soul and voice of Portugal, Cristina Branco, will be unleashing her mesmerising voice next month in Nicosia and Limassol as part of her European Tour 2005 promoting her new album Ulysses. Cristina Branco is known worldwide as the best fado vocalist, and even referred to as the fado princess.
All this seems awfully unreal if you consider that Cristina wasn’t even interested in fado, originally studying communication sciences and dreaming of life as a journalist.
Her first contact with fado came at 18 when her grandfather gave her the album Rara E Inedita by Amalia Rodrigues. Until that point, Cristina had always felt that fado was a genre for a different generation. Born after the revolution of 1974, she was more into folk music, jazz, blues, bossa nova, like almost all young Portuguese children.
“I discovered fado for real about 10 years ago,” Cristina once said, “but I’ve only been singing it for four or five years and now it’s my life. It’s the way I cry and I laugh. It’s just a way of expressing myself, so it’s life above all.”
Fado is considered a type of folk music, characterised by mournful tunes and lyrics, often involving the sea or the life of the poor. But Cristina has managed to breath life into something that seemed boring and dead, with her unique voice and the help of Custodio Castello, her most valued composer and guitarist. Castello’s music and lyrics combined with Cristina’s do-re-mis have evolved into a powerful weapon and although his melodies remind us of fado, there is a huge difference, as it can also be very happy, leaving behind the sorrows.
“First I pick a poem I love, then I ask Custodio if he thinks that poem has music,” she explained; “if he says yes, then he tries to make the music or we try to put it in a traditional fado and make a new arrangement. If he writes the music first, I have to say ‘I feel this poem in this music’. It’s our way of working and so personal.”
At the age of 28, Cristina has established an impressive name. She has won multiple awards and with hundreds of concerts, from the Centro Cultural de Belem in Lisbon to the Edinburgh festival in Scotland, from the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam to tone-setting theatres in New York, she has mesmerised audiences across the globe.
Cristina will presenting songs from her new album as well as from previous ones such as ‘Sensus’, ‘Corpo Iluminado’, ‘Post Scriptum’, ‘Murmurios’ and others. The albums, as well as Cristina’s voice, are widely known and appreciated and she is often compared to Amalia Rodriguez, a legendary figure in fado history.
“People say that, but I don’t know yet,” she admitted, “I’m absolutely influenced by all kinds of music I hear besides fado. But I don’t know yet if I can near blues when I listen to my voice. But I feel I am influenced.”
Like other forms of folk music such as Greek rembetika, Argentine tango or American blues, fado is felt as much as heard and experienced. “I’ll never make a record that isn’t fado,” Cristina said. “It can be so many things besides what I’m doing now. I can always make a different record and it will always have a scent of fado.”
Cristina Branco. Tuesday, June 14, 8.30pm, Skali Aglandja amphitheatre, Nicosia.
Wednesday June 15, 8.30pm, Municipal Garden Theatre, Limassol. Ticket prices and outlets will be announced shortly.
