CRISTINA BRANCO
Suffering, melancholy and impotence in the face of fate are
the tragic emotions that people expect when listening to traditional
fado music. The long tradition of the fado has brought forth several
fixed formulas to express these feelings. Their faithful repetition
does, however, wear down this wealth of expression and flatten emotions,
eclipsing the singers' lyrics.
 Cristina
Branco has chosen a different path. She has not sought a naive break
with tradition but, in preserving the best of it (just listen to
some of the classics she sings), she uses her authentic interpretation
to breathe new life into the fado tradition. With her beautiful
voice and sensitive rendition, she aims to merge the lyrics with
the fado music, to make someone experiencing them hear them as inseparable.
Cristina Branco (1972) grew up far from the fado houses of Lisbon
and nothing suggested that she was predestined for the fado. Like
almost all young Portuguese born after the revolution of 1974, she
was interested in folk music, jazz, blues, bossa nova but not in
fado. She regarded it as a genre for a different generation. This
lasted until her 18th birthday, when her grandfather gave her the
album Rara e Inédita by Amália Rodrigues. Suddenly,
Cristina Branco discovered all the emotions that the genre could
offer in the close connections that arose among voice, poetry and
music. The amateur singer - then studying communication sciences
and still full of her ambition to become a journalist - began to
develop her vocal technique and to take her new vocation seriously.
Halfway through the nineties, other young musicians also found
a new means of expression in the fado and this contributed to a
surprising renaissance. Just as they did, Branco began to make clear
choices in which respect for the tradition went hand in hand with
the desire for renewal.
There can be no doubt that Cristina Branco is developing her own
style from a number of primary components. She employs a traditional
group (voice, Portuguese guitar, guitar and bass guitar) and offers
us concurrently a light, warm and experienced voice; she mixes the
traditional fado with themes and folk songs that are personal favourites
and seems always to choose the words of the best Portuguese poets
with discretion.
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