ONLINE: Mariza

media release:

The Town Hall is pleased to announce Portuguese singer Mariza in a special streaming concert event, being filmed exclusively for this broadcast. Recorded in Lisbon, Portugal to be webcast  January 29 at 8:00PM EST, Mariza will celebrate the release of her album "Mariza Sings Amália" (on Nonesuch/Warner Bros. Records), which pays tribute to Amália Rodrigues, the Queen of Fado.

There are no two voices like these. The late Amália Rodrigues sang her last concert at The Town Hall in 1990. Mariza, has helped bring Fado into the 21st century. These performers are two of the greatest and most influential stylists of Fado, the sound of Portugal. Mariza celebrates the twentieth anniversary of her career and the centenary of the late Queen of Fado, Amália Rodrigues, with Mariza Sings Amália, her first full album of Amalia classics.

Mariza and Rodrigues have a lot in common, beyond their origin. With her residencies at legendary venues such as the Paris Olympia and Carnegie Hall, Mariza swept global audiences off their feet in the early part of this century, like Rodrigues had done in the 1950s and 1960s. Through her critically acclaimed recordings and unexpected collaborations, Mariza expanded what Fado could be, just like Rodrigues had done in the 1960s and 1970s. Mariza became the most celebrated ambassador of Portugal's music in the twenty-first century as Rodrigues had been in the twentieth century.

But never before has Mariza taken the step of recording an entire album of Amália classics.  Now is that time: in 2020, the 20th anniversary of Mariza's career, the centenary of Amália's birth.

The album, "Mariza Sings Amália", featuring 10 Amália standards reinvented for the 21st century, will be released a few days before the January 29th concert.

Since her early days, Mariza has always sung pieces from Rodrigues' repertoire, on stage or in the studio; it is almost a rite of passage for any Fado singer. But never before had Mariza taken the step of recording an entire album of Amália Rodrigues' classics. "This is the best way I can find to pay my tribute to Amália, and to thank her for the legacy and inspiration she gave us," says Mariza.

For this new album, Mariza invited an old friend: Brazilian musician and producer Jaques Morelenbaum, a regular collaborator of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Caetano Veloso. Morelenbaum produced Mariza's triple-platinum 2005 album Transparente; here, he creates a series of orchestral arrangements, simultaneously classic and innovative, that allow Mariza to delve into these ten well-known songs. The album was recorded between Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro.

Mariza made her debut at The Town Hall in 2003, the year after she released her first album Fado em Mim. Fado's history at The Town Hall stretches back to midcentury concerts with artists such as Maria Marques and of course, Amalia Rodrigues's legendary 1990 performance and recording at the Hall.

Mariza, whom Uncut calls "the greatest contemporary singer of Fado," has sold more than a million copies of her recordings worldwide and has more than 30 Platinum awards. Her albums have been released all over the world; each of the albums has reached #1 in Portugal and has made top-ten lists in many other countries.

Tickets for Mariza in concert are $40 and are currently on sale at www.TheTownHall.org. The cost of the ticket reflects the desire to keep the singers' band, crew and technical support teams employed during this global crisis.

The concert is presented by a consortium of five venues around the United States: The Town Hall NYC, Arden Concert Gild, St Cecilia Music Center, University of Chicago Presents, and Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts.