Glasgow’s annual Celtic Connections music festival attracts bands and performers from around the world. One of the predicted highlights this year was Portuguese fado singer, Mariza, who played at the Royal Concert Hall on Friday 27th January, with support from Anglo-Irish band, Flook.

Flook members are Sarah Allen (flute and accordion), Brian Finnegan (flute), Ed Boyd (guitar), and John Jo Kelly (bodhran). Playing music from a number of countries and regions - Ireland, Scotland, England, Macedonia, Brittany - they gave a wonderfully vivid, energetic and virtuoso performance. Finnegan bantered with the audience, while Allen, sporting pink shoes against her dark jeans, spent the greater part of their time on stage with one leg raised up, like a stork. Flook have the knack of establishing a strong connection with the audience almost immediately.

Some of Mariza’s musicians, dressed in black, played briefly - Portuguese guitar, Spanish guitar and bass guitar - before Mariza herself appeared, a tall, slim, gothic figure with bleached cropped hair. Dressed in a floor-length black gown with sheer sleeves and a dark red girdle, from the moment she appeared, she dominated the stage. She’s a performer with huge stage presence and charisma. Only one song in the whole evening was sung in English - Summertime - performed near the end. Otherwise, she sang in Portuguese, yet she held the audience through every song, not just through the sheer power of her voice, but also through her ability to convey the emotional meaning of the works.

Mariza was born in Mozambique, to an African mother and Portuguese father. The family moved to Lisbon where her parents ran a taverna. There Mariza was introduced to fado as a young child. She sang her first fado when she was five. Since then she has gone on to international success, releasing album after album to rave reviews.

Her concert in Glasgow included older works such as the fabulous Primavera from her Fado Curvo album, but the emphasis was very much on the music of the new album, Transparente. Recorded and produced in Brazil, Transparente is something of a departure, with more orchestral backup, but every bit as good as Fado Curvo. For the concert, she was backed by a seven man team: violin, viola, cello, Portuguese and Spanish guitars, bass guitar, and percussion. Transparente, Há uma música do Povo, and the beautiful Meu Fado Meu are just some of the songs she sang from the new album, and there were plenty of faster numbers too. She moved around the stage, often gliding in elegant dance steps. In between numbers, she talked about how she came to fado, her parents’ taverna in Lisbon, her African background.

The concert ended with the usual standing ovation and encore, the audience reluctant to let her leave. It’s been two years since Mariza played in Glasgow. Since this was the opening night of her European tour, some people travelled a good distance to see her, not just from England, but from Portugal itself. Reviewers of Mariza’s CDs have often remarked that as brilliant as her albums are, her live performances and concerts are even greater. This is no exaggeration. If you have the chance to catch her in concert, don’t miss it.

Kara Kellar Bell is a film and media graduate from the West of Scotland, with a passion for European novels, French films, silent cinema, and Brazilian music (everything from Daniela Mercury and other pop stars through to bossa nova). As a writer, she likes to have room to move around creatively, so she’s not located in one genre. She writes realism and also stories of a more fantastic nature, usually grounded to some extent in the real world. She also takes delight in writing across the sexual spectrum, and as a bisexual, considers it important to remind people that things are not always black and white, either/or, in sexuality or in gender. For a selection of Kara’s writing on the Showcase section of this site, click here

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.