In less than twelve years, Mariza has grown from a nearly hidden local phenomenon, only known by a small circle of Fado lovers from Lisbon, into one of the most applauded stars, in World Music’s international circuit.
Everything started with her very first album, Fado em Mim, edited in 2001. This album soon leaded to several international presentations of great success – Québec Summer Festival, awarded for the Most Outstanding Performance, the New York’s Central Park, The Hollywood Bowl, The Royal Festival Hall, The Womad Festival.
Ultimately, it has granted Mariza the BBC Radio 3 Award for the Best European Artist in the World Music scene. Fado em Mim was a very exciting first album, clearly showing a young female singer with her whole and vibrant voice and her strong artistic presence. Mariza was still singing some great hits from Amalia’s repertoire, though her interpretation of the great diva of Fado and her songs was already so personal and unique that no one could compare her Fado to mere imitation. Soon, Ó Gente da Minha Terra, from Mariza’s own repertoire – from the young composer Tiago Machado – has proved to be an enormous success, by the artist’s own right.
Fado Curvo (album)
Her second album, Fado Curvo, was released in 2003. It was clearly a step ahead for the reinforcement of her own personal style and her own repertoire, with a great deal of help from Carlos Maria Trindade’s excellent arrangements. Amália was still present with her emblematic Primavera (with David Mourão Ferreira’s poem for lyrics), along with the iconic intervention singer José Afonso, a great symbol of the democratic opposition to Salazar’s regime in the 60’s and 70’s, though a lot of the remaining music material in this album was new and inspiring. Fado Curvo would end up by getting to the 6th place on the Billboard of World Music and winning the Deustche Schallplattenpreis and the European Border Breakers Awards, assigned at the MIDEM, 2004. The artist’s public performances increased, with great personal triumphs such as the Royal Festival Hall of London, the Alte Oper of Frankfurt, the Théâtre de le Ville of Paris, the Walt Disney Concert Hall of Los Angeles (with Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra), the Teatro Albéniz of Madrid or the Teatre Grec of Barcelona.
Her presence on stage can be recognized on her DVD Live in London, that includes her March 2003 Recital at the Union Chapel and well demonstrates her impressive vocal gift and her great ascendant confidence on stage. In 2004, along with Carlos do Carmo, Mariza would be nominee by the Mayor of Lisbon, ambassador for Fado’s candidacy to the Representative Shortlist of the Immaterial Cultural World Heritage, that would be approved by the UNESCO in November, 2011.
Transparente (album)
2005, the year when she has received the Award for the Best Performer from the Fundação Amália Rodrigues and was also nominee Ambassador of Goodwill for the UNICEF, would be a particularly remarkable year for Mariza, with the release of her third album, Transparente. From this album, a brand new and much mature presence would arise, so self confidant and self aware of her vocal gift that she could afford both to whisper and to demonstrate her voice’s full power as a climax on each line as this would give her songs a new life. Her serenity and intelligence as a performer was quite impressive. She knew how to create room to pay homage to three great Fado singers with whom she feels great personal and artistic affinities: Amália, from which Segredo, from Reinaldo Ferreira and Alain Oulmain, has been the last original released in the singers life; Fernando Maurício, recently gone, the one Lisboners would call “O Rei do Fado” (The king of Fado) and with whom Mariza has played for several times in Mouraria, the place they both lived; and finally Carlos do Carmo, whose advice Mariza always recognized as of great importance and to whom Mariza has dedicated a very emotional cover of one of his greatest successes, Duas Lágrimas de Orvalho.
Her repertoire was now more and more vast, for songs as for lyrics, and would lean on extraordinary orchestrations from Jacques Morenlembaum. An album and DVD of her anthological concert in Lisbon on September 2005, with the (Orchestra) Sinfonieta de Lisboa directed by Jacques Morenlembaum himself, released in 2006 would stand as mark to reveal the great aspect of her more and more mature personality as a singer. By the same year, she would receive by the hands of the Portuguese President, Jorge Sampaio, the tittle of Comendadora da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique.
Performing on the most important stages
Mariza’s career would go on better than ever, with great success and performances on world’s most important stages: The Olympia of Paris, the Frankfurt Opera, the Royal Festival Hall of London, Le Carré of Amsterdam, the Palau de la Música of Barcelona, the Sydney Opera House, the Carnegie Hall of New York, the Walt Disney
Concert Hall of Los Angeles (this last venue with special scenography signed by Frank Gehry).
Cinema and television
In 2007 Mariza was one of the main stars of the film Fados, from the Spanish director Carlos Saura, released in almost a hundread countries, and she’s starred the documentary Mariza and the History of Fado, produced by Simon Broughton for BBC. The year after, Mariza has participated in the first documental series of portuguese public television about the A História do Fado, Trovas Antigas, Saudade Louca, with voice from Carlos do Carmo and script from Rui Vieira Nery.
Terra (album)
It was also in 2008 that her forth album was released. Directed by Javier Limón, this album has gathered the new repertoire Mariza has sang in her latest performances with great hits such as Alfama and Rosa Branca and other great songs featuring Tito Paris, Concha Buika, Ivan Lins and Dominic Miller.
Fado Tradicional (album)
2010 would be a year of a very special project, Fado Tradicional, in which Mariza would stress her connection with the most traditional Classic Fado roots, returning to some of the most prestigious composers of Fado legacy such as Alfredo Marceneiro. In that same year Mariza would be awarded by the French government with the tittle of Cavaleiro da Ordem das Artes e Letras.
Best of (album)
In 2014 her album “Best of” is released, gathering all the greatest hits and two totally new songs. There was also a special edition of this album with a special selection from Mariza’s fans. “O tempo não pára”, one of the brand new songs in this album, was the main theme for a portuguese tv series called “Mulheres” (Women), having got to the top of national radio charts for several weeks in a row. The second new song was “É ou não é”, a very popular song for being originally sung by the greatest Diva of Fado, Amália.
Mundo (album)
“Mundo”, Mariza’s sixth studio album, was her very first album after a five-year break in studio records. “Mundo” does not forget the Fado where everything started. But it incorporates a new Fado, bold, experimental, a Fado that pushes the boundaries of a new identity, a new beginning. In her voice, in her soul, in her passion, Mariza his the Fado, wether she sings Javier Limón or Jorge Fernando, Paulo de Carvalho or Carlos Gardel, Amália or Marceneiro, Pedro da Silva Martins (from Deolinda) or Rui Veloso. Not yesterday’s but today’s Fado, open to the world, open to the seas.
“Mundo” is an album of traveller spirit, an album en route. It goes all the way from Cape Verde with “Padoce de Céu Azul” to flamenco with “Adeus” (lyrics from Cabral do Nascimento and music from the guitarist Pedro Jóia, with a touch of revisited tango with “Caprichosa”, from Carlos Gardel, 1930. By Mariza’s voice, so sensitive to the infinite emotion waves, this album (direct by Javier Limón, coming from Terra) makes us believe that this is a small world indeed, that there’s no distance, nor space or time.
The world that she sings it’s our world, it is. It’s the world of Fado and all the other songs that surround it. But it is most of all Mariza’s world – a world that has grown along those five years she’s been without recording, a world that reveals new landscapes, new places, and new songs as she sees it. As she sings it. As only this
“Mundo” (World) could ever show.
Main Awards
• Goodwill Ambassador by UNICEF
• Ambassador of Fado’s Candidacy to World Herritage by UNESCO
• Title of Cavaleiro da Ordem das Artes e Letras (France)
• BBC Radio 3 – Best World Music Artist
• Fundação Amália Rodrigues International Award
• Title of Comendadora da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique (Portugal)
• Turistic Merit Medal by the Secretary of State for Tourism (Portugal)
• Womex – Best Artist 2014
• Songlines – Best Album 2015
• Songlines – Best Artist 2016
• 5 Latin Grammy Nominations (2007, 2008, 2016)
Main Performance Venues
• Sidney Opera House
• Carnegie Hall – New York
• Walt Disney Concert Hall - Los Angeles
• Royal Albert Hall –London
• Olympia - Paris
• Oper Frankfurt (Frankfurt Opera House)
• Philharmonie – Luxembourg
• Le Carré - Amsterdam
Conclusion
“No Portuguese artist since Amália Rodrigues has ever experienced such a triumphant international career, accumulating success after success on the most prestigious world stages, raving reviews from the most demanding music critics worldwide and countless international awards and distinctions. As usual, her musical partners are simply only the best: Jacques Morelenbaum and John Mauceri, José Merced and Miguel Poveda, Gilberto Gil and Ivan Lins, Lenny Kravitz and Sting, Cesária Évora and Tito Paris, Carlos do Carmo and Rui Veloso. And her repertoire, while firmly rooted in classical and contemporary Fado, has grown to include occasional Cape Verdean mornas, Rhythm and Blues classics or any other themes she holds dear to her heart.
In the past twelve years, Mariza has long passed the stage of a mere exotic episode in the World Music scene; ready to be replaced by whatever new colorful phenomenon appears in another geographic corner of the recording industry’s market. She proved to be a major international artist, strongly original and immensely gifted, from who much is yet to be expected in the future. The young girl from Mozambique, raised in the popular Lisbon neighborhood of Mouraria, has mastered the roots of her musical culture and developed into a universal artist who is able to open herself to the world without ever losing her heartfelt sense of Portuguese identity. And Portuguese audiences are the first to acknowledge this triumph and pay her back with unlimited love and gratitude.”
RUI VIEIRA NERY
Instituto de Etnomusicologia – Centro de Estudos de Música e Dança