The project “Amália Hoje” is a Portuguese pop project created by musician Nuno Gonçalves (The Gift) in collaboration with Sónia Tavares (The Gift), Fernando Ribeiro (Moonspell) and Paulo Praça. To mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Amália Rodrigues, Nuno Gonçalves was invited by Valentim de Carvalho to reinterpret some songs from the vast catalog of the “Diva do Fado”, with full freedom of choice of compositions, collaborators, arrangements and all the musical direction. This is how the album, “Amália Hoje” was born, published on April 27, 2009, with nine fados immortalized by Amália Rodrigues and reinterpreted with a contemporary pop approach assuming the position that “Amália Rodrigues was the first and biggest pop star in Portugal” . At the time of the launch, Nuno Gonçalves stated that “looking back, listening to records, analyzing everything Amália created, we began to realize that Amália was much more than Fado. Amália was the first and perhaps the only pop artist with a global dimension that Portugal has ever had”.
For this tribute, they left the Portuguese guitar out of the recording studio and brought new blood to the fado singer’s repertoire, including electric guitar, drums, synthesizers, programming and an orchestra. The album’s track list reflected, “a personal choice of Amália’s fados, but at the same time a choice that is not obvious”, as they chose “compositions that had room to grow and that had an innate pop sensibility”. The first single released, “Gaivota”, a poem by Alexandre O’Neill and music by Amália Rodrigues’ longtime collaborator Alain Oulman, was sung by Sónia Tavares and quickly became the biggest radio hit of the year. Fernando Ribeiro interprets “Formiga Bossa Nova”, also by O’Neill and Alain Oulman, and “Grito”, a poem written by Amália Rodrigues with music by Carlos Gonçalves. Paulo Praça interprets “Nome de Rua”, by David Mourão-Ferreira and Alain Oulman, among other songs.
The “Amália Hoje” project was presented throughout the country to tens of thousands of people at festivals, theaters and with 40 musicians from the Czech Republic Symphony Orchestra, sold out five shows at the Lisbon Coliseu and three shows at the Porto Coliseu. Since its release, the album “Amália Hoje” has achieved triple platinum status with more than 80,000 units sold in Portugal alone, having been one of the last great national sales phenomena, with the project having crossed the borders of Portugal with concerts in Asia. , in Canada, USA, Brazil and several other European countries.
With the celebration of the centenary of Amália Rodrigues, numerous invitations appeared for the return of the project, but the pandemic postponed the opportunity to see these songs on stage again. After almost a decade without performing on national soil, the time has come to be able to watch again this show that ends a centenary year with many tributes to our greatest Diva of Fado.
Nuno Gonçalves, Sónia Tavares, Fernando Ribeiro and Paulo Praça will be the musicians who a few years ago accompanied the project with Mário Barreiros on drums, Israel Pereira on guitar, Carl Minneman on bass and a seven-piece choir.
Source: https://www.culturgest.pt/pt/programacao/amalia-hoje-caixa-culturgest/