since it launched Overseas, his most recent album (recorded in 2019 and published only in 2021, due to the covid-19 pandemic), which Brazilian singer-songwriter Fred Martins has been recovering from the absence of stages dictated by confinement. It started in that year, 2021, with concerts in Almada, Sintra and Lisbon, subject to the constraints of the time, has been performing in the collective Rua das Pretas and now announces two concerts with guests. The first is this Thursday in Lisbon, at Auditorio Carlos Paredes, Benfica (9.30 pm), with singer and fado singer Joana Amendoeira and Rui Poço (who also form part of the collective Rua das Pretas).
This concert will also pay homage to the Portuguese guitar master Carlos Paredes (1925-2004), who would have turned 99 if he were alive this Friday. Furthermore, the line-up will feature themes from the most recent albums by Fred and Joana, respectively. Overseas It is On the turn of the tide (resulting from a partnership between Joana, Fred and Tiago Torres da Silva). In the text that announces it, the spirit of the concert is thus summarized: “From bossa to fado, from chula to samba and baião, all the rhythms blend naturally in the guitar and voices of Fred Martins and Joana Amendoeira, aligned in a very Brazilian and at the same time very Portuguese.”
Born in Niterói, on June 14, 1969, with his childhood spent in Brasília, Fred Martins moved to Spain in 2010 and has lived in Portugal for almost six years. Throughout his career, he has composed songs for various performers (Ney Matogrosso, Zélia Duncan, Maria Rita, MPB4, Adriana Calcanhotto, Renato Braz, Beth Bruno, Regina Machado, Paula Santoro, Susana Travassos or Joana Amendoeira) and, in his own name , has eight albums, some recorded in Brazil, others in Spain and Portugal: windows (2001), rare and common (2004), time out (2007), Guanabara (2009), Acrobat (2011, with the Galician singer-songwriter Ugía Pedreira), Beyond the Wall of My Backyard (2016), Music Is My Country (2017) and Overseas (2021).
As for Joana Amendoeira, she was born in Santarém, on September 30, 1982, competed for the Grande Noite do Fado at just 11 years old, recorded her first album at 15 and at 16 she was already singing abroad. She has eight albums: Boys Eyes (1997), that street (2000), Joana Amendoeira (2003) Live in Lisbon (2005), Under the skin (2006), Joana Amendoeira & Mar Ensemble (2008), Most Perfect Love (2012), Long after (2016) and On the turn of the tide (2020).
In Almada, with João Afonso
A week later, it’s Fred Martins’ turn to join João Afonso at the inaugural concert of amazing fridays at Cine Incredible, in Almada. It’s on the 24th, at 21:30. Fred and João have already been performing together for a decade, in Galicia and Portugal, and this two-part concert is based on that sharing and on the diversity of their repertoires, not least because João Afonso’s most recent album, Booksis the same year as Overseasby Fred Martins, 2021.
Born in 1965 in Mozambique, in the former Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), son of a sister of José Afonso (1929-1987), João Afonso has recorded six albums in his own name to date: beads (1997), Winged Boatr (1999), Zanzibar (2002), Another life (2006) and good blood (2014) and Books (2021). Throughout his career as a musician, singer and composer, he has worked with several other musicians, such as José Mário Branco, Fausto Bordalo Dias, Amélia Muge, Júlio Pereira, Filipa Pais, Uxia, Luís Pastor, the Mestisay group, Pablo Milanés, Paco Ibañez, Pedro Guerra and Javier Ruibal, Kepa Junkera, Costa Neto or Stewart Sukuma.