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Dulce Pontes is “sweet” and is the winner of the prestigious Amigo Award for Best Latin Female Solo Artist, a category in which the other nominees were Gloria Estefan and Celia Cruz.
Pontes offers a blend of traditional fado with contemporary styles sure to produce a stunning effect during her performance at 7:30 p.m., Friday, April 27, at John Hay High School, 2075 Stokes Blvd., Cleveland.
Before her awe-inspiring voice led her to partner with the world’s greatest singers, including José Carreras, Andrea Bocelli, Cesária Évora, Caetano Veloso and jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter, Pontes saw her start in musical theatre as a teenager and, at age 20, she won a starring role in a hit TV show.
Pontes has immersed herself in the roots of Portuguese popular music and in the fado she remembered from her childhood, which blends Spanish, Gypsy, Jewish and Arabic influences into a passionate style.
The result of her new focus was a 1993 album, Lagrimas, which reintroduced Portugal to its musical heritage and brought the genre to worldwide attention when its opening song, A Cançao do Mar (Song of the Sea), was prominently featured in the Hollywood film “Primal Fear.” That album went on to become one of Portugal’s best-selling albums of all time.
Pontes was heralded as the first to take fado to the international arena and as a natural successor to one of her heroines, the legendary Amalia Rodrígues, widely regarded as the soul of fado.
She later went on to win the Amigo Award, the first Portugese artist to achieve this feat, and also found vocal admiration in the eyes of Oscar Award-winning composer Ennio Morricone, who has composed five new compositions for her voice.
Today, Pontes’ musical identity stems from a combination of influences from her world travels, all infused with fado.
Admission to the performance is $29; $27 for CMA members. Students pay what they can the night of the performance or can reserve group tickets in advance at a discounted price [subject to availability and with valid student IDs]. To purchase tickets, call the CMA Ticket Center at 1-888-CMA-0033 or online at www.clevelandart.org/viva.
Editor’s Note: The VIVA! & Gala series presents the final performance of the season with Anonymous 4: Long Time Traveling, including Special Guests Darol Anger & Scott Nygaard. The four women who comprise Anonymous 4 combine musical, literary, and historical scholarship with contemporary performance intuition as they create ingeniously designed programs, interweaving music with poetry and narrative. The ensemble, which has been honored as the Top Classical Artists of the Year, appears at The Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 2, 2007.
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