All we have to do is “feel it”

by Petar PLAMENOV


14 May (Saturday), 2011

SARA TAVARES
Sofia 
Bulgaria Hall
Grand Hall, 19:30
Address:
Sofia, 1 Aksakov Str.
Working time: mon-sun 09:00–18:30
Phone: 02 987 76 56

Sara Tavares (voice/guitar)

Ivo Filipe Barros Costa (drums)

Luis Miguel de Carvalho Leal Caracol (bass)

Joao Baptista da Luz Monteiro (ukulele/guitar)

Geoclandio de Fatima Lopes (percussion)


Sara Tavares is as busy as a bee with crossing & touring the USA's big distances, hopping from venue to venue and bringing her calming music. Don't miss out on her soothing and uplifting show and listen to some live in Sofia this Saturdayon the stage of  Bulgaria Hall.

Sara Tavares was only 16 years old, when she won two of Portugal's most prestigious TV music contests. Born out of a second generation Cape Verdean immigrants, Sara grew up between two cultures. Initially known as a singer and composer of Gospel, Soul and Funk, she gradually incorporated more of her African music in her compositions. In 1994, she recorded her first album Sara Tavares & Shout, released in 1996. To present the album she performed all over Portugal, Cape Verde, and France.

A Portuguese singer of Cape Verdean descent, Sara Tavares makes gentle, sensual music that reflects the cosmopolitanism of Lisbon. Casually skipping between Portuguese, English, and various African tongues, Sara mixes the lulling dance rhythms of Cape Verde, Angola, and Brazil, as well as American R & B. "Portuguese singer-songwriter Sara Tavares trades in understatement. She strokes rather than strums guitar chords, her two percussionists are more likely to brush a drum than whack it hard, and her soft close-to-the-mike voice specialises in gentle yearning rather than soul-girl histrionics. So the intimate space of the Jazz café seems much better suited to her than, say, the Barbican where she had the unenviable task earlier this year of being a viable support act to the larger-than-life Malian diva , Oumou Sangare. As it turned out, Sara did a perfectly good job of warming up Oumou's crowd, but she was definitely much more at home last night in front of an audience who were there only for her. "writes about her critics.



 A leading representative of the new generation of Cape Verdean singers who emerged in the wake of Césaria Évora’s transglobal success, Sara was born off the islands, and part of the generation whose parents migrated from the bleak Atlantic islands off the coast of Senegal, to Portugal, in search of work.
Through the remarkable success of her 2006 release Balancê, Tavares acquired international status, with fans throughout Europe and the U.K.  As a teenager, Tavares founded the first Portuguese Gospel Choir in Lisbon and decided music was to be her destiny. Her favourite singers of the day were Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, and Donnie Hathaway. In 1994, she won a national TV competition, and entered the Eurovision Song Contest. From there, a contract with BMG records brought Sara’s band their self-titled debut CD, Sara Tavares And Shout.

During the immediate years that followed, the singer was drawn from gospel and pop music into Lisbon’s burgeoning African and Cape Verdean music scenes. Her 1999 debut solo album, Mi Ma Bô [finally released in the U.S. last year as part of a 2CD/DVD collection Alive in Lisboa on Times Square ] was still rooted in R’n’B, but its producer, the Paris-based African artist and producer Lokua Kanza, helped Tavares find an upbeat Afro-pop mix. It earned her a gold disc in Portugal and a nomination for the Portuguese Grammies (Globos de Oero) for Best Artist/New Album.

"Artists like Sara Tavares should be treasured because it's so rare for them to get their music, in its purist most uncompromised form, out there for public consumption. Tavares may produce the gentlest music and have the sweetest of smiles, but she must have had to be one tough cookie to have made it this far completely on her own terms, as her music suggests that she has. "

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