A Look at the Portuguese World

 

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Yvette Vieira

Yvette Vieira

Sunday, 30 December 2012 19:17

Arrebita, arrebita invicta


It is a bold project with innovative solutions that aims to renew the urban space of the city and return it to its inhabitants, through social entrepreneurship that goes through recovery vacant buildings. The first phase of this idea already underway in Reboleira Street in Ribeira.

Let's start with the obvious, how did you come up with the idea of ​​arrebita Porto?
Jose Paixao: The idea arose in the context of the contest "Do it", ideas of Portuguese origin, which was promoted by the Gulbenkian Foundation and the Talent Foundation and directed to the Portuguese community outside Portugal. The idea was to counteract the brain escape and create incentives for the Portuguese to invest and participate in building of the country. I was out of Portugal for twelve years and decided to enter this competition against the abandonment of city centers. It was a problem that particularly affected me as an architect and felt the contrast between the cities that I knew abroad and urban centers in here. I formed a team with some friends and I presented this idea to the competition, we wan and we are now implementing it.

The project aims the city of Porto; you are a native of this city?
JP: Yes, I am a native of Porto. Although there is an emotional reason, there is also a perception problem and a contact with this reality. Porto in Portugal is the most serious case of abandonment of city centers. Only in the last 20 years, the urban area lost two thirds of its population. It was therefore striking presenting alternative and innovative solutions to this problem that affects the whole population. The identity of the city. Your safety. The most vulnerable populations residing in these areas. The infrastructures of the city are also affected. It is a problem that requires solutions and answers.

You chose Erasmus students why?
JP: There are not students of Erasmus, they are like that. They are young professionals, recent graduates, or in a phase of finalists in their respective courses that already have learned in this field and will apply this knowledge in a real work environment and hence the opportunity under our supervision and partners we can give conditions for one hand to develop their own projects and on the other have a real impact on society, to feel the value of their effort in solving a real problem.

How many elements make up the "arrebita Porto"?
JP: The "arrebita Porto" has a coordinating office, where we do not develop, we only designed. There is an international team in phases of three months that will develop it. The teams have five members who will be taking turns in time and they do the project, working. We are organizing, around twenty elements that support and give the conditions under which on the one hand, this team can develop the project and that may be in contact with the remaining network of partnerships that can accompany these works. We have a position of mediation and not so much role in the development.

Sunday, 30 December 2012 19:15

The experimentalist

Janita Salomé is a musician, composer, singer and great promoter of the music of Alentejo. With a career spanning over 30 years, Eduardo João Vieira became one of the symbols of a musicality always evolving and constantly changing. Proof of this is his last album in partnership with his brother, another big name in Portuguese music, Vitorino, titled Impure Modas.

Portuguese still like traditional Portuguese music?
Janita Salomé: The Portuguese enjoyed even more Portuguese music if they let it be known. Nowadays there is talent show that candidates always sing in English and not in Portuguese and when they do they choose always pop / rock musical style that is the most widespread. On the other hand, I notice a great response to my music and beyond, also another Portuguese music, that listeners in young ages and they are curious, they have musical training, people who wants to meet other sounds and is something that I feel.
Your brother, Vitorino, argues that there is not enough Portuguese music on the radio.
JS: Indeed it is true; one passes a certain Portuguese music on the radio. Our musical heritage is extremely rich and diverse, and in fact is not disclosed in all its magnitude and this is what he means. There are singers and creators like him, as I and other names that are not worth mentioning that we do not hear on the radio and it is unfortunate, because many times people will go to the concerts because they already know the singer, others go out of curiosity and then are surprised, as if they did not know that there was this kind of music in Portugal. The universes end up being restricted or it confined us what sticks in the ear and just who is more curious, that have a particular formation and that dominates the media like the internet is going on a search for other genres, other musical languages. But all this is very dependent on the individual and not the stimuli that could create the radio and television, which had such an obligation and do not comply.


Are you preparing a new work?
JS: Yes, within little time I will release a new album that I recorded with my brother Vitorino of Alentejo singing and will have media coverage as we did not had in other years, it gives me the idea that this is something new happening. We have this hope! We will play at the Coliseum in Lisbon on 6th of October.


This new work is a collection of music from Alentejo?
JS: Not quite the collection, because they are song that we sang when we were kids, other that were composed on the texts of António Lobo Antunes, who has a strong connection with the Alentejo. The project is called impure modas, we now the purists of traditional Alentejo music will not like it a lot, we are already guessing it. Hence the title.

Sunday, 30 December 2012 19:15

The buttery youth

 

"Bolo do caco" was born from an indomitable will inner to youth that is to make a difference. It is a theater group that is distinguished by the balance between intellectual and popular. The beautiful and the banal. For the non-conformism that insists on plague society and aim to depose. Now they have a fixed space, where you can also show up in the number of 116 of Santa Maria in Funchal.

Tell me a little about the theater group "bolo do caco".
Xavier Miguel: The group emerged in 2011. We did a play that is "the ingenious doctor" by Moliere and have travel a bit all over the island. Then we did some animations, including a week of poetry.

It was necessary to create another group of amateur theater in Madeira? There are already several. Where do you differ?
XM: It's true, there are some. Not that there are immense. There are groups that make one play and end. I decided to create one that follows our ideas, which reflects a popular theater, with more fun and dynamic content, from an intellectual side and the opposite, a more popular one. I like that balance. We have intellectual jokes and "silly" ones. I like this mix, because there are groups that just do comedies and other more serious theater, but I wanted something very unique, one that reflected our style.

How many members you have so far?
XM: We are 10 in all, although we do not have a permanent staff. There are those eight to ten who work in all plays. For this particular one, "fish-tails, episodes of the old quarter" we have a team of 20 people.

Tell me a little of this play, these particular texts?
XM: The choice of text came up with the space. The old quarter. It is an urban area that has undergone a social and economic expansion and in cultural terms that had not yet happened. We had the "home of the poets" that had two exhibitions and is always closed. The "arts space" on the other hand, you always have the same things and painters complain that they do not sell the paintings on display and otherwise, there is nothing. And so we thought of combining the concept of the stage off the stage, which goes towards the idea of ​​the festival on, but in this case with the theater. The idea is to create a temporary area, but fixed. The house is the theater group "bolo do caco" and "mad space invaders" and we use it to publicize our work and welcome others. We lacked a cultural space in this area. In parallel, we wanted to do a play about the ancient city of Funchal, the old town. I've been researching and there was nothing written, and then I spoke with writers, search at home and found the book of Joao Carlos Abreu, "Joana, fish tail," which I had not occurred me before. And there was a click. It is a book that portrays characters and episodes that happened in real life, however amazing it may seem, it all true. The day-to-day life of the children, the women, the prostitutes, the fishermen and their personal mess. Of the boys who dived on the beach to catch the foreign coins. I got this text, because I thought it was beautiful and poetic. As a theater group always we have an intellectual content adapted it with a style "with garlic and butter." It is a scene that fluctuates widely among kids who play football and the couple that brawl in the street. The drunken woman who yells at the other woman drunk, because she stole her boyfriend. It is a play of equilibrium.

Why "bolo do caco"?
XM: it's all about Madeira. I'm linking it to the island, is popular. It is a group with cultural roots, old, has tradition and history. The "bolo do caco" is a food that is tasty and satiating, art and culture also feed society and is also fun.

Sunday, 30 December 2012 19:12

Musica viva festival 2012

An event organized by Miso Music Portugal to showcase the national music talent.

The 18th Festival Musica Viva will take place from the 18th to the 23rd of September at the Centro Cultural de Belem (CCB) and from the 1st to the 10th of October at the Goethe Institute in Lisbon. The event will be devoted essentially to create new musical approach relating Portuguese music with technology. The highlight of this year is Constance Capdeville, (the 75th Anniversary of her birth and 20 years later on her death) and also Alvaro Salazar that has an opening concert entirely devoted to him.
With the complicity of excellence and a diverse range of artists and participants, without its generosity from which, this year, we could not have this event, the festival program will also include debates, a large sound installation, the 2nd International Forum for Young Composers Sond'Ar-te Electric Ensemble and nine performances, to present about 60 works, 40 of them of Portuguese composers, including 15 premieres.
This musical event, considered one of the largest of its kind at a European level, like previous editions, continues to show the work of the national composers and musicians in what is considered the golden age of higher even after the time of polyphony. Opposing the disinvestment in art and culture practiced by the government, Portuguese composers and performers of today, affirm an unprecedented richness and vitality which the Musica Viva Festival gives voice since 1992, being a privileged vehicle of the communication of music that is made here and now and that reinvents itself every day.

The opening concert is on the 18th at 21 hours, to be held in the small auditorium of the CCB, with the participation of several renowned Portuguese interpreters, Elsa Marques Silva and Luis Serdoura at the piano, Nicholas Pais, the reciter and the Choir of the University of Classics of Porto, under the direction of Jose Luis Borges Coelho, who put in perspective two major works of recent production by Alvaro Salazar, "Studies Incomunicantes" I / A and I / B, which are closely interlinked, the second of which will be presented in as an absolute debut. The work of this composer, conductor, teacher and music critic, is a landmark in contemporary Portuguese culture. This music has a particular taste for textures in which the sound is sculpted by silence. The rest of the program can be found on the link placed at the end of this text.


www.misomusic.com

Sunday, 30 December 2012 19:12

An unstopping chain

13 years ago there arose a literary event that marked the cultural agenda of our country, the currents of writing. A meeting between the writers and their readers that aims to encourage talks about books, question content and reflect on the literature. The initiative of the department of Culture of the Municipality of Póvoa do Varzim has, over time, grow not only in the number of participants, but in visitor, mostly young people who want to address the words, read them and criticize them, as stated by the councilor and member of the organization, Luís Diamantino.

After 13 years what are the goals that remain unfulfilled for the currents of writing?
Luis Diamantino: An event such as the current of written has a catalyst: ambition. Intends to reach that far, never losing sight of the two major goals: to promote books and reading, especially among young people.

What is the feedback that you perceive from the public after all these years? There is a great accession of the young?
LD: The public has participated in such a way that is the main entertainer and promoter of this meeting. They come to hear about literature, there are queues to enter the auditorium. We have more young people to participate in the tables and in the audience, but never forget to take the writers to all schools of the county, which are very well received and studied. We received, too, schools of other municipalities.

The reading levels are very little in our country. You think it is mandatory to have more events like this to promote reading? You notice that in your county?
LD: In the Povoa de Varzim, there has been a very strong work in promoting reading, have a great editorial production, a major book fair, took the library to the schools, the pediatric hospital, to nursing homes, the streets, to the streets, gardens ... we created municipal Libraries in the parishes of the county and were the first municipalities to create libraries of beach. In Portugal, we edited increasingly more therefore we read much more. After the birth of the currents, we saw the emergence of other literary, which came to enrich the national publishing scene. In Póvoa, there are many more readers and writers, especially young people.

Since the first edition, you can highlight some of the most memorable moments of this literary event?
LD: There we so many moments in the debates, people, books and readers!

Sunday, 30 December 2012 19:09

The singing star

Danae tells the stories of anyone. Her compositions play with various musical rhythms that influenced her since early childhood to adulthood. They are the memories of Cuba, Cape Verde and Portugal transposing into her songs and sounds flooded with unusual shades. Is the new African music, the new Creole, from a sweet voice, full of meaning, which leads us to an endless journey.

What is the difference between your first album, "fool's condition" and "Cafuca"?

Danae Estrela: The "Cafuca", the second album was more conscious even in the choice of instruments. I was more present in musical direction. My first work, "fool's condition", the base was the guitar and voice. I was unaware of what I was doing; I did not program to follow a certain path. It happened in Coimbra. The boys of college radio tape it for fun, and then I met Pedro Renato that heard what they recorded on the demo and then invited me to work with him. I then decided to try it. The first time I did everything, even the compositions, the songs and my parents didn't even realized, it was done among friends, in the room.
This fusion of musical styles that we hear in your compositions was always something you brought with you from the first album?
DE: Yeah, people always were surprised too that a girl who is Cuban and Cape Verdean that sings in Portuguese, but you know, music is an open language, has no barriers, you are releasing the imagination, either in Portuguese, English or Creole. I am also a Creole, born in Cuba, grew up in Green Cape and them came to Portugal. I live here. It's a mixture. Hence these new creoles.

Who then are these new creoles?

DE: We are four people that showed up only in "Cafuca"; hence I speak of awareness, to bring out a concept. The first album came in an intuitive way, this second recording, was more like the style, what's happening here? It's a new concept, because not only I do fusion music, compositions also happens.

You already imagine the "Cafuca" with all these new tools?

DE: This new album no. The Indian tablas are a rare instrument in Indian classical music and how Raimund Engelhardt play's it and accompanies me is fantastic. We met on the Tagus bar. The story is funny, I was very shy and Sergio who works in bar and hardly see, is virtually blind, to poke me during a concert decided to turn off lights, at the same time the boys arrived and Raimund and Johannes Krieger, the trumpeter , decided to "reply" to my music without we seeing each other. Only a year later I spoke to Engelhardt and we started working. Then bring we brought to table the concept of the new creoles. Lisbon is a very cosmopolitan city, people gather there, there are many colors and the palettes are immense. Are we, the creoles.

Sunday, 30 December 2012 19:11

The pappeter artist

Carlos Aveiro has a long career in the arts, the hotel entertainment as teacher and as a puppeteer. One of its many facets, which led him to create a show called, wires, showing a universe of varieties artist in small size for the whole family.

How the adventure with the puppets did begin?
Carlos Aveiro: When I was working in the company costa crocieri, at the time was coordinator of the animation of the ship and of course the art world joins all. One of those who worked on board was an English puppeteer and we ended up exchanging impressions during dinner. My curiosity was such that we talked and he invited me to watch one of his rehearsals. And without expecting he handed me a puppet, I move it and manipulate it and that's where it all began. I went back to Portugal and did research on puppetry in terms of graphics and construction.

Then you build your own puppets?
CA: Very little, I work the idea with several people who work exclusively for me. Even meet with several puppeteers, Americans, Germans and my wife that is Dutch. We exchanged impressions, and we ended up working this idea and she goes and builds it.

How long it takes to build a puppet from scratch?
CA: With hard work can take a week, others may take about two months or more, because as we discovered that we are building new capabilities. It is a time consuming job, not only due to the choice of materials, the ideal wood is French because it is lighter, but then they are intrinsic mechanisms that must be inserted. Some details such as feet, hands and head are made of wood pulp, because it is easy to shape, then goes to the oven that gets such consistency that does not break.

But what attracts you is the imaginary involves? It's the handle?
CA: I've always been connected to the arts. I was responsible for animation in hotels, casinos and always had a great fascination with the art of acting and I saw in puppets a different form of expression that until 1992 I was not used to. With this fascination, I can through my work not only attract children, teens but also adults. All public, either Portuguese or French, or English. The show is constructed so that it is accessible to any human being, regardless of their origin.

The "wires" why now?
CA: I open a show in 1995 that was called "the magic of puppetry." Since then I have been building this so-called wire. It's new. It is a national debut. In Portugal puppeteers have much value, but they do not present their work as I do. It's like a variety show. Not a story per se, so I can captivate an audience younger and more mature and interact with them permanently. We will have a skeleton with a black light to the mix that will decompose. In fact, this character has been the delight of children, in the end, if you asked them what puppet they liked the most, they always answer the skeleton. I added a stripper, a chicken and an ostrich.

Sunday, 30 December 2012 19:09

On my 40th birthday

 

The Commune Survey Theater is celebrating its 40 years of existence, which makes them a reference weight in the national theater scene. A work in progress for culture that has made known Portuguese and international playwrights and contributed decisively to shape new actors.Carlos Paulo, a founder and one of the engines of this company, talks about this collective journey, his career and new play currently on stage "the Valladolid controversy."

How was this adventure thru almost 40 years of the Commune?
Carlos Paulo: It was a dream at the time, because we created the Commune to have in our hands our fate, we wanted to do theater and liked it. We lived among Fascism and censorship. We wanted to make a collective of actors and the vision was to create new audiences, creating Portuguese and international drama and new spaces. Also be a group of itinerancy. We do it all. We have a house in Lisbon with four rooms, traveled throughout the country and have been in 18 countries worldwide. Another component of our work is the teaching of new actors. We see these artists on television, I can speak of José Pedro Gomes, Rita Salema and Armindo Gonçalves who started all the Commune was its home company and for us it's all a matter of pride. It is an area of ​​growth, such as a parents' house, when we are ready we go on living. And that is how we have kept this part we have very young and older actors and that is the Commune's, never like forty years ago. We are available and responsive to change in order to respond. The theater is so.

As an actor and teacher what are the differences between this new generations of new artists and yours?
CP: Now what is different is that it is apparently easier, but only in appearance. Television has created a market that allows easier access to the actors, but it is false, is disposable, use them two or three times, then they are familiar faces, they abandoned them, leave them. There is a lack of basic training, then they are with kids who are 17, 18 years old of age, appearing in magazines and suddenly in their twenties put them aside and they do not understand why. In our time, we climbed on the ladder, from play to play, show to show, winning our space and our place. That's why I feel sorry for them because then there is no structure to follow into a direction, to create new companies, new groups to draw on the experiences they already have. Today, mainly in the theater, which we see has happened people is formed at the conservatory, or have basic training and they do not suffer this way I call disposable, which is very easy. Earned much less than in my time. I stopped doing television for ten years, because I think the quality has fallen a lot and that the exploitation is rampant. I prefer the theater, where I do not cheat anyone, do the plays I like and I have no shame. But I understand that a young person feels overwhelmed by this world, is a way of appearing. Then there is not a continuity of that work, quite the contrary. Then we see in magazines, some cases are terrible.

In this long journey the Portuguese public also changed?
CP: They have changed. Before there was a very loyal audience to the theater, which was disappearing. Television began to have much strength, videos; cinema itself has a lot of people. Now, there is much new audience in the theater is full of young people, because we have an advantage over these means of which I spoke before, is not disposable on the Internet. They either come to the show, or not come. There, the theater has it, these kids have a great desire to know and come in at the end of forty years, and the Commune has very young audience. Then we live in a world with so much technology that they are delighted with the contact between us and them. The being together in a closed room, for one or two hours all together and it is very beautiful. I believe in the future of the theater, because it has to do with the meeting. We are living an era is that we needed to find out, make eye contact, talk and talk.

This new play makes this interconnection with the celebration of 40 years of the Commune?
CP: The play was chosen because it is a great text. We have always chosen taking into account what people mean now? In these times of globalization and in recent years with this war of religions, races and this play "The Controversy of Valladolid" is about a historical fact, when the Spanish conquered the Americas they faced a new breed that were the Indians. The Vatican held a meeting in Spain, bringing a couple to show that indigenous people were like the others. Portugal is a country of mixtures, a mulatto country, has African, Indian, all kinds of people and we looked at each other like what? Where we get the racism? It is ignoble? It is on the skin? The piece is a reflection on this, on the other and the way you think about their culture. It is very strong and very beautiful and it was a very good topic to think.

Sunday, 30 December 2012 18:55

The alchemist of the soul

Dr. Ana Moreira has a great need for understanding things, the intricacies of scientific knowledge and the human being. A passion she carries to her profession and her patients through integrated medicine, which aims to not only heal the body but also the mind.

How a person does devoted to science, has a biological approach to medicine and a concept that is syntergetic?
Ana Moreira: What I think the problem is that people, doctors and the whole so called science class is not yet looked at the side of the coin. What I studied in the syntergistic, within integrated medicine, functional (these are all names) is that it is a holistic medicine. In the background I am a licensed doctor of medicine who specializes in other areas, we call it integrated medicine, because it involves many skills and is more than covered with scientific papers. First, these articles are not of public knowledge, because are not sponsored by pharmaceutical companies and this is the crux of the matter. Then we are backed by quantum physics that underlies much of the bioenergetics medicine. Most of the world still does not know what is this science approach which has many theories. Are scientific explanations for something that worked on and people do not realize quite well that is the energy of its own. There is an electromagnetic field that surrounds us is a cloud of electrons that are measured by the Kirlian's chamber. The name is due to some Russian scientists, physicists, who have created kind of a big camera that retains the image of a cloud of electrons surrounding us.

This type of medicine looks at the patient as a whole, because is part of the cure?
AM: That's the dream, I think any doctor in this area, which is the holistic work. We tried to see not only the symptom, the main complaint of the person, but try to understand it. Imagine a pain in the shoulder of a fifty-year old woman who just lost her son in an accident and we cannot dissociate this pain she feels, the loss, of the physical pain in her shoulder. We always have to see people as they are. Where do they live? With who? Where they reside? In what family they belong? To learn how they react against the vicissitudes of life. One of the very interesting aspects of this approach is what we live out in the end we live within. A person excessively perfectionist, with rigid timetables, with protocols and schedules of life is a person with muscular rigidity. The body generates energy of such emotions. When we see a person with a complaint and see that it is embedded in a family in a working group in a society where we see that person as a whole and of course, your past, what we have lived and what are its prospects for the future. Unfortunately, nowadays, our society does not live in the present. We are trapped in the past and feel angry because it cannot be changed. I live angry because I cannot modify it and I forget to live the present, or live in the future, which is tomorrow. As this day is not today, I'm anxious because I do not know what to expect and once again I forget to live the present. In reality there is only one time is today. If you're focused on now, time is infinite, has no measurement. Note, sometimes a day seems to long, others we are talking five hours with someone and in the end we say it is already over? Or we give a ten seconds hug to a person that we loved truly and seem like five hours, time is relative. In fact there is only now.

The integrated medicine how is seen by your colleagues?
AM: I have no idea. At first when I began studying this was kind discovering gunpowder, I call, I mean, I try to bring people to my side. It doesn't work, each must make his way. Also it is a search, a personal path. Who is this area did so for a reason, or for yourself, or someone in your family that referred it to this area not as well publicized as I call it. Now, after this first approach did not work, I knew that was the way but was very early still, I notice that my doctor friends hear me, accept me, send me family, consult with me and even with other doctors of this area. The other colleagues depends, I think there is a class that respects our work, but mostly there is a total ignorance, I'd say 50% of people who are treated in hospitals, are being cared for by professionals with the same philosophy as I, just do not have the courage to tell their own colleagues. On the other hand, many patients are being well treated, well controlled on their illness, have spontaneous remissions, including cancers, are people who are "out here at the same time," just do not have the courage to admit to the hospital doctor because are afraid of being put out, not given the appropriate treatment. There is also a lack of truth, because people are afraid to say it what causes that the colleague does not to notice the reason that lead his patient to improved so much and may question whether it is worth studying this issue.

But there is considerable resistance from the doctors in this area, so that treatments are not reimbursed because they do not prescribe this type of alternative treatments.
AM: There are two questions I would like to clarify, the first is that this is not alternative medicine. When we talked about alternative treatments, we are talking about a therapist who is not licensed in medicine, has a form of medicine, sees people who are sick. They are called unconventional therapists, naturopaths, whatever you want to call them, it is already recognized in law. Another thing is what I practice, I am a doctor, a college licensed by Portuguese Medicine University, with some European curriculum, what I carry out is an integrated medical approach. I integrate all the knowledge I had in college, physiology, of biopathology, of immunology with some knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic, homeopathy, of homotoxicology and integrate all this and see people in a holistic way, so it's more appropriated to say integrated. Sure that homeopathic medicines are not reimbursed in this country, but in others are, perhaps because governments have come to the conclusion that people are treated this way are healthier, spend less time in the hospital and use less reimbursed medicines. There is the famous case of a German insurance company that lowers prices for people who say they are treated with homeopathy, which do meditation and yoga. People more concerned about their health, do not smoke, drink less alcohol, are more aware with food, with the body, so hopefully they are less sick.

Sunday, 30 December 2012 19:05

The minstrel of emotions

The voice of Peter Barroso has cross several generations of Portuguese because it speaks of love, hate, passion, pain and anger. He sings his heart out and that message is timeless. His music is like a historic retail of a people, the Portuguese and all these features make him universal.

You are an author and composer with a somewhat revolutionary side. How is that new generations see it?
Pedro Barroso: I am happily cross. Otherwise, I wouldn't filled shows and had a 43-year career, so it was not possible to endure all this time, if what you were doing now was not felt by audiences. I disagree that I make revolutionary songs, only in the sense that appeal to a society with other tenderness, with other values, not those who govern us in today's society. But, that is existential, not only in Portugal, is a problem of values ​​worldwide. We extol all that is mediocre and forget what is profoundly beautiful. Those who are competent and very good are neglected and harmed by what we call the "mainstream", which are waves of galloping successes of "lady gaga" who are bad musically, resulting from a marketing construction, that lives from that and rarely correspond aesthetically in terms of musical and poetic language in something profound and worthwhile. We have to realize that it appeals to values ​​of mediocrity that are rarely transformers of society, towards a different attitude, with other intelligence, a more cultured one, is in that sense I may try to intervene thru the so call revolutionary music. When it was necessary I was on the first line to make songs that led to the revolution of April of 1974, I am proud to belong to a generation that had a lot of courage to conquer democracy to Portugal. Right now I believe that the greatest achievements are those that say I have a different sensitivity in living every day.


You think that is why we hear very little Portuguese music in the media?
PB: It's an observation. It's a fact. Television shows series, movies, but does not have a single program on Portuguese music made with serious musicians and live. It made a television made of ordered packages, canned and rarely invites Portuguese artists to make a night of live music and songs. The song festival was a great party with great music in its time, now it has some acquaintances who will happy doing some songs which people rarely like and forget the next day, it is not longer the time of great song of Ary dos Santos, Nuno Nazare Fernandes, José Niza and Fernando Tordo, those were songs that left a mark and a memory. There were things even of TV Globo, 40 years ago, before April 25th, when artists played and today they won't, we are rarely called to do a show. Instead, they make these "idols" and "operations triumph" that fill the heads of those young people with ideas of wealth, success and after a year nobody knows them, so some are more victims of this marsh fire that is now Portuguese culture. We needed to defend our values. So, no wonder we killed Camões of hunger and Carlos Paredes, a genius of the Portuguese guitar had to be Archivist of Radiology in the Hospital of Saint Joseph. This is a country that does not respect the great values in education, in science and in the art. These had to be all slaves and others were princes without any value what so ever. The ones that really matter and mark the Portuguese culture were rarely understood and accepted in their time.

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