The Center for the Arts presents
Saturday, September 17
8:00PM, $18 members, $20 non-member
Center Members – Pay What it is Worth to You
- David Sylvian
Carmen Souza was born in Lisbon within a Christian family of Cape Verdeans. Very early she experienced the “Sodade” feeling of missing someone with the long absence of her father due to his work at sea. She grew up in a mixed language environment of Creole, the Cape Verde dialect her parents spoke at home, and Portuguese, always surrounded by the Cape Verdean way of life.
In her teens she sang professionally in a Lusophone Gospel Choir. Being a strongly spiritual person, Carmen always saw music as her mission and felt privileged to have the opportunity to express herself through it, working hard every day to deserve that opportunity. Musicians like Luis Morais, Theo Pas’cal, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Joe Zawinul, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarret, Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Horace Silver, etc, are definitely those that truly inspire her evolution and search for a unique personal style.
Theo Pas’cal, her producer and mentor and one of the best bass players in Portugal, discovered her talent and introduced Carmen to Jazz, Fusion and other contemporary sounds that markedly influenced her musical development.
In 2003, Carmen began working with Theo on the compositions that would be included on her début album Ess ê nha Cabo Verde. Carmen wanted to create a new sound, in her ancestor’s dialect Creole, that would mix traditional African and Cape Verde rhythms like Batuke, Morna, Cola djon, and others, with her jazz contemporary influences, in a totally intimate and acoustic vibe, different from the traditional festive environment of Cape Verdean sounds.
Ess ê nha Cabo Verde, was released two years later in 2005 to critical acclaim and led to her international breakthrough performance at the WOMAD at Reading Festival of the same year.
After 2 critically acclaimed albums, Carmen Souza returns in 2010 with the impressive “Protegid” (Protected) that blends perfectly with elegance and sophistication the African and Cape Verdean traditional rhythms with Contemporary Jazz and Afro-Latin. Once again the two composers, Carmen Souza and Theo Pas’cal, present an album that pushes even more the limits of what constitutes the Cape Verdean music, World Music and Jazz. Carmen co-produces, plays guitar, Rhodes and signs 11 out of the 12 lyrics of the album.
In Protegid, Carmen Souza singular vocal approach and courageous musical chooses have earned her pairing with singers like Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Cleo Laine, Eartha Kitt, Marie Daulne. Her Unique talent as a singer, composer and musician sets her apart from the female crowded Cape Verdean scene and progressively she is consolidating her own space in the World Music/Jazz music.
Carmen Souza have been touring extensively around the World since 2005 and in 2010 she plays at big stages like The North Sea Jazz Festival(NL), London African Music Festival(UK) or the Leverkusener Jazztage Festival(DE). In Leverkusener, Carmen Souza, headlines a double bill with Mariza with an amazing performance later broadcasted by WDR/3SAT German TV.
Other concerts were also broadcasted around the world by major TV/Radio Channels like CBC (CA), RDP (PT), RADIO6(NL), etc, and her uniqueness is recognized by Ethnomusicologists Gerhard Kubik and Fernando Arenas. A closer look into Carmen Souza groundbreaking work was included in a new book called “Beyond Independence: Globalization, Postcolonialism, and the Cultures of Lusophone Africa” by Fernando Arenas released by the University of Minnesota (USA).
2011 had a great start with a critical acclaimed performance at RAI UNO Concert d’el Epifania broadcasted to million of viewers in Italy, a tour in Brazil, Turkey and Benelux and a long tour in Germany, Switzerland and Austria with sold out concerts and great critical acclaimed by the national press.
June brings probably one of the highlights of the year with Carmen Souza first concerts in Cape Verde with full coverage in all national press. The concerts receive great reviews from Press and Audience and all recognized her special and unique place in the Cape Verdean music culture.
