| FADO FESTIVAL NY&NJ Debuts at BROOKFIELD PLACE NEW YORK
Festival in Downtown Manhattan & Newark Runs May 1-11
A New Venue for Festival’s Expanded Program Spotlights
Four of Fado's Biggest Stars
In Free Evening Concerts at the Winter Garden May 3 & 4
Dazzling Double Bills Featuring Camané and Ana Sofia Varela,
Hélder Moutinho and Maria Emília
Portuguese Jazz Singer Sofia Ribeiro Opens Festival
with Free Afternoon Shows May 1 & 2
Festival Closes with Walking Tour of Historic Ironbound Section of Newark
and Fado Concert at Sport Club Portuguès May 11
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Fado Festival NY&NJ enters its third year with a dazzling new venue partner, Brookfield Place New York, its most expansive lineup of artists and, with four free events, an incomparable opportunity for fans to hear some of the most revered singers on the Portuguese fado scene today. As in previous editions of the festival, the 2019 edition offers an unparalleled portrait of fado's past, present and future. The festival will feature four of fado’s biggest names-- Camané, Hélder Moutinho, Ana Sofia Varela, and Maria Emília -- as well as the fado-inspired U.S.- based Portuguese jazz singer Sofia Ribeiro.
This year's festival is the biggest and most extensive to date, running May 1 - 11. It features daytime and evening shows--all free and open to the public--from May 1 to 4 at Brookfield Place, a bold, state-of-the-art venue for cultural programming in New York City. The following weekend, Fado Festival NY&NJ travels to the historical center of fado in the United States -- Newark, New Jersey -- on May 11 for a walking tour of the Ironbound district and an intimate fado concert at Sport Club Português.
Fado is enjoying a global resurgence, buoyed not only by worldwide tours of artists who perform it, but also by the experiences of visitors to Portugal who have heard the music in the small taverns and community collectives where it was born and still thrives. Fado captures the spirit and inventiveness of Portugal -- as well as some of its boldest contradictions. The music can be wildly improvisational even while adhering to its strictest traditions; its lyrics span the sacred to the secular; and its practitioners are a fluid mix of individuals representing nearly every corner of Portuguese society.
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Portuguese jazz singer Sofia Ribeiro May 1 & 2 (courtesy Fado Festival NY&NJ)
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Fado singer Camané May 3 (© Felipe Ferreira)
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Fado singer Ana Sofia Varela May 3 (photo courtesy of Fado Festival NY&NJ)
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The festival opens with two free lunchtime concerts at Brookfield Place by Portuguese singer Sofia Ribeiro on May 1 and 2, both at 12:00pm. An award-winning performer, Ribeiro's latest recording, Mar Sonoro, embraces fado, jazz and contemporary Brazilian music. Ribeiro has performed extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe, and has released a total of eight studio albums.
The festival's free evening concerts begin at the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place with a double bill featuring Camané and Ana Sofia Varela on May 3 at 7:30pm
Camané's highly influential body of work, captured in nine studio albums (six certified gold) and countless live performances over more than 30 years, has established him as the deacon of 21st century fado. His two most recent records are both monuments to the form, as well as being his furthest-ranging and most penetrating to date. Infinito Presente, the product of an extended collaboration with the writer José Maria Branco, operates on a knife-edge: while the lyrics and arrangements are deceptively simple, even sparse, they express the enigmatic, ineffable emotion that the Portuguese claim as uniquely and exclusively theirs: saudade, which is at once the happiness that brings sadness, and the sadness that brings happiness. On Camané's most recent record, Canta Marceneiro, he revisits the repertory of Alfredo Marceneiro, an early 20th century fado singer who, though only moderately competent as a technician, completely recast fado's possibilities for artistic expression through unbridled inventiveness, guile and wit. Camané's Canta Marceneiro is filled with picaresque stories that reveal the common cares and fears in all of us through the lives of wizened waitresses, drunken painters, and kings' courtiers.
Ana Sofia Varela rose to prominence in the early 2000s as one of a small group of young and dynamic new fadistas, initiating a period of vibrancy and innovation that continues to the present. Her two album-length releases--a self-titled 2002 debut and 2009's Fados de Amor e de Pecado--are tender and heartfelt recordings that recall the lonely landscapes and Moorish influences of Portugal's Alentejo region through the lives of various women. Varela has performed extensively throughout Portugal and Europe. She is currently at work on new record, scheduled for release in 2020.
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Fado singer Hélder Moutinho May 4 (photo courtesy of Fado Festival NY&NJ)
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