“Fado em mim” (Fado in me) the titles of her albums are always revealing; evident right from the start with her first album release in 2001. Triple platinum in Portugal, the album thrust her on to the international scene in recognition of her talent. The foreign press had no hesitation in stating that a star is born.
She was given an enthusiastic welcome on the stages of various countries. Her energy was also recognized. Mariza sees the stage as her “living-room where she entertains her friends” and audiences have felt this warmth. As early as 2002, at the Quebec Summer Festival she received the First Award for Most Outstanding Performance. She performed in New York’s Central Park, the mythical Hollywood Bowl, the Womad Festival, and sold out at the Belém Cultural Centre in Lisbon and the Purcell Room on London’s South Bank.
The same year, after conquering British audiences with her performance on Jools Holland’s legendary television show (as well as being distinguished by inclusion in the commemorative DVD), Mariza was considered by BBC Radio 3 the Best European World Music artist. In March 2003 she received the award from Michael Nyman, at Hackney’s Ocean where silence was called to hear her sing. The previous night she had performed at the Union Chapel.
At the time her second album, “Fado Curvo” (Curved Fado) was launched – the Fado, like fate, isn’t a straight line… “The fado is not enclosed by limits”, Mariza confirmed all expectations. German critics once again awarded her the Deutsche Schalplatten Kritik Award. The album reached no. 6 on the Top Billboard of World Music. And in Portugal, besides critical acclaim, it achieved a double platinum despite the recession that had hit the market (a fall of 39% in just two years), and while no other contemporary fado singer managed to sell a sixth (!) of what Mariza achieved, she emerged as one of the best-loved artists in her homeland.
Stages she has performed on in a succession of tours in Europe and North America include the following: she sold out at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, the Belém Cultural Centre in Lisbon and the Théâtre de La Ville in Paris. Foreign journalists in Portugal recognized her for “excellence in the spreading of Portuguese culture, in its most characteristic manifestation: the fado” and voted her Personality of the Year 2003.
In 2004, the year in which she launched her first DVD which recorded the show at the Union Chapel in London, she was also recognized at MIDEM, where she received the European Border Breakers Award. She went on to participate in Unity, the official album of the Olympic Games, on which she sang the number “A thousand years” with Sting.
Mariza has performed concerts on four continents with notable success and full houses. She opened the season at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, she performed at the Albeniz Theatre in Madrid, 20,000 people applauded her enthusiastically at Rock in Rio in Lisbon, she went on stage at the Teatro Grec in Barcelona, in Aveiro, Portugal, she was applauded by an audience of 30,000, she was the guest of honour at the Cairo International Song Festival, she returned to Lisbon to perform for 22,000 people in Monsanto Park, she took part in the Chicago World Music Festival and the San Francisco Jazz Festival, she sang at the Macau Cultural Centre and at Moscow’s House of Music.
As the poet wrote, Fado makes its way in the world through the transparency of its lyrics, and these Mariza sings with all her heart.
In 2005, she was chosen by the Kingdom of Denmark as one of the international ambassadors of the work and the spirit of Hans Christian Andersen. She was chosen both for her fame in Portugal and abroad, but also because the fado, rather like the work of Hans Christian Andersen, has a certain poetic melancholy that makes its appeal universal.
Mariza just wants to feel “free to sing” - “the voice that I have is stubborn…” –, it has within it a yearning which is constantly seeking its own fado.
