folk holidays

AS IN A MASS OF LINO AND FADO SONGS ENVELOPED BY THE SOUND OF PIANO AND PORTUGUESE GUITAR

WITH HER INTERPRETATION OF FADO SONGS, SINGER LINA CHANGES THE HEARTBEAT OF THE AUDIENCE FOR THE SECOND TIME

It's one thing to experiment with a national musical treasure, but it's quite another thing to approach fado songs like the singer Lina. That's really quite a different category, for which there are perhaps no right words.

Some Portuguese adore the Lisbon native almost as the stepdaughter of the greatest fado legend Amalia Rodriguez, and the rest of the world just hopes that they don't dream of Lina's beautifully soulful voice and lose it when they wake up.

Whereas on her hugely successful debut album three years ago the singer almost took the songs of the immortal Amalia word for word, on this year's follow-up she shares her conviction that the greatest fado singer who ever lived in Portugal remains the Renaissance poet Luís de Camões. Of course, this is hyperbole; fado didn't exist in the 16th century; Amalia was referring to the sonority of Camões' poetry, for which Portuguese is often called the language of Camões. Apart from the fact that you are unlikely to find a more famous poet in the country, to be compared with Shakespeare, Homer or Virgil. "I became curious, wanted to learn more, and found that Camões' verses and sonnets were close to the themes of the fado, and it made perfect sense to me to adapt them to my own compositions. After all, fado is not defined by the Portuguese guitar and the most important thing in fado is not so much the instruments, but rather the words and the way you express them," Lina explained why she chose the Renaissance poet.

Three years ago, Lina performed at our Festival alongside Catalan producer Raúl Refree, the creator of a revolutionary electronic soundtrack chosen out of the belief that rules are broken in order for history to continue. The new Fado Camões album was also given to the well-known British rock guitarist Justin Adams to play in Namesti. For him, too, Lina proceeded from the knowledge that he knew almost nothing about fado and the weight of traditional techniques therefore did not rest on him, which only benefited the fantastic album, which also featured keyboardist John Baggott (Robert Plant, Portishead), artistically.

The singer was not able to bring both instrumental stars to Namesti, they are busy with other projects, so she chose a more intimate accompaniment of the album's other co-creators: the famous Portuguese guitar player Pedro Vian, who has also worked with Mariza in the past, and Ianina Khmelik, alternating between piano and synthesizers.

Photo:Mileu