Balada de Lisboa (Beau Bledsoe)

I have a long history of going to far-flung locations to learn the music of other people in an immersive fashion. My recent trip to Lisbon was by far the deepest and fastest immersion I've ever experienced. I must first address an unexpected advantage Fado Novato was blessed with. I had personally assumed that there would be a mountain of foreigners hustling around Lisbon attempting to learn fado but apparently, we were among the first to do so. When I had traveled to Buenos Aires to study tango or to Sevilla to study flamenco, those communities were practically supported by foreigners clamoring for what those cities had to offer. There have been a few individuals from Japan, Spain, Brazil and Mexico to study fado in Lisbon but we may be the first ensemble of foreigners attempting to study and perform there. We were also American fado musicians with no Portuguese background and this fact was somehow very interesting to most Portuguese people.

By asking people in Lisbon for help ahead of our arrival we did not waste any time "settling in". We also had the great fortune of our press releases being picked up by many national publications resulting in many Portuguese people knowing about our project beforehand. On the first day, our apartment rental agent, Margarida Almeida Costa, introduced us to her neighbor, Diogo Varela Silva. He is the grandson of Celeste Rodrigues, the oldest living fado singer who is the sister of the fado legend Amália Rodrigues. We went out with Diogo and his wonderful family almost every night until the wee hours while we were in Lisbon. On the second night we were performing in a fado house called Bela located in Alfama. By chance, the editor-in-chief of Global Notícias, Catarina Carvalho, was present in the audience and was very interested in our project. She said that we would hear from one of her staff writers soon. The next morning she called us (we were asleep of course) and told us that she wanted to write the story herself. We later met with her for interviews and photo sessions that resulted in this article. She became a very good friend and introduced us to many of the important fadistas in Lisbon. I often felt as if we were culture ambassadors being wined and dined at incredible restaurants and locations. I’m quite confident that I’ll never eat that that way again. We spent two unforgettable evenings at Claro, the restaurant of brilliant chef and fado aficionado, Vitor Claro.

My personal ambition was to learn as much about the Portuguese guitar as possible. I had gotten as far as I ever could on my own and it was definitely time to study with some professionals. I was very fortunate to work with two very different Portuguese guitar players. Antonio Parreira, is the guitar teacher at the Museo de Fado in Alfama. He is very much an old guard fado musician and plays in the style that one often hears on older recordings from the golden age. He was extremely kind to both Jordan and I and often very emotive and excited about our learning process. He gave us an enormous amount of musical scores, MP3s and videos that I’ll be dealing with for years to come. Our other teacher was Sidónio Pereira. Sidónio is extremely active in the fado scene in Lisbon. He works every night with an infectiously positive attitude. I discovered him on youtube and I've always liked his accompaniment style. He’s very good with singers and knows all the tunes inside and out. He runs a fado series at Povo in Lisbon for young fado singer where they perform every Sunday night in eight week residencies and then make recordings when they have completed them. He taught me the most basic traditional fados and made sure that I had them in all keys and he never let me leave unless I really knew them.


Antonio performing Balada da Saudade

Sidónio's series at Povo

At the moment I’m practicing this material everyday and disseminating the information amongst my musical colleagues in Kansas City. I’ve had a handful of Portuguese guitar performances already and more planned in the future. I’m absolutely ecstatic about practicing right now and I can’t seem to put the Portuguese guitar down. I’m sure my current inspiration will result in some very interesting opportunities in the future.

Playing the music of Carlos Paredes with Victor Penniman (viola da gamba)



practicing Fado Lopes