Raquel Tavares

Raquel was born in Lisbon, on January 11, 1985, from a family connected to the musical panorama of Lisbon's song. From a very young age, she frequented most of fado gatherings.

Her studies took her on other paths, following a normal path of education and maturation, until the moment when her “destiny” led her to decide her life and career.

She returned to the usual places of Fado, already at 18 years old. She passed by the most important Fado houses in the city and signed with Movieplay Portugal label and HM Música (Management).

After a first album - "Porque canto o Fado" (1999), she edits her second album in 2006, "Raquel Tavares", which earns her the Amália Rodrigues Award for Revelation Artist, and creates her own show, presenting a character that is based on her artistic identity.

Raquel Tavares lives where her fado lives. In the heart of Alfama. A traditional outspoken heart, in the most direct connection to the feelings that one can aspire to.

It is the neighborhood that shapes Raquel's voice. It is there, when living it day and night, that she is and feels more like a fado singer. It were those collectivities that saw her sing for the first times, still a girl. These are the streets that know her every step of her day. These are the people who, whether they know her or not, are fatally linked to every word that comes out of Raquel's chest. 

Raquel sings what she sees, feels and smells, what she lives daily. And nothing pleases her the most than the real and tangible stories written by the hand of Linhares Barbosa, the fado poet who best narrated the turns of the people.

But if the "bairro" (neighborhood) refers very naturally to Alfama, it also points to another geography. An interior geography made up of other streets and alleys, other doors and windows, that trace Raquel Tavares' musical path. From a girl who sang for free to the woman who only finds fun in singing. This album documents a series of pivotal moments in the musical journey of the singer. Only she will have the key to open each of the secrets that ends here, but the secret that has ceased to be is that Raquel Tavares, winner of the Amália Rodrigues 2006 Prize, is no longer just a voice that promises much.

In 2008, "Bairro", her third album, gathered consensus among critics, who considered it one of the best Fado albums ever.

You feel in her voice, in her attitude, in her expression and, above all, in the courage she has to assume herself as “a Fadista”. All of this cannot be due to chance, nor to the fact that there is an artist with an enormous talent for acting. No great actress could take on this role so well...

In her attitude, the experience and fantastic absorption of this art is perceived by those who are born and raised in the environment. In the essence of her singing, there is the posture, the rule and the influence, with the greatest naturalness, of a range of other great builders of this way of being and living which we call “Fado”.

To be an interpreter it is not enough to know how to sing, put your voice and tune in the melody notes. It is important to create, take poetry and tune it with music, which is also suggested to us.

A great performer is also a great composer, as he has the talent to know how to manage the context between the voice, the melody and the words, so that everything becomes a message. A message that must reach everyone, as if, with their eyes closed, they could see and believe the various descriptions presented.

There is a “magnet” within the artist that stimulates the creation of all those around her, from the records to the shows, which were created by themselves, in the inspiration of the main character and at the same time the “muse” of this project. It had to be anyway. There could be no other topic than the story of Raquel Tavares.

After eight years without editing, in 2016, Raquel released the album "Raquel", an expected return of the artist to the recording studios. "Raquel" is not just a fado record because, according to her "In these eight years without recording, I sang a lot, in many places, I traveled a lot, I fell in love with new musicalities, I rediscovered myself as a singer and performer and I realized that I didn't she was just a fado singer ".

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