Author: Sandra Gilch

Chapter 6: Changing bairros Alfama and Mouraria

The neighbourhood of Mouraria is said to be the birthplace of Fado. This legend specifically refers to the first female fadista Maria de Severa, who was born in the year 1820 in the Rua do Capelão. Nowadays, this street presents an outside exhibition space – thanks to the artists Camilla Watson and Lambert Rozema. Together with the local community they have created artworks related to the history and the current developments in Mouraria.

Dutch artist Lambert Rozema has created an artwork panel with buildings in different colours. In the short film about his project some inhabitants share their perspective towards the changes in their neighbourhood, like Paula Alexandra Pinto:¹

“Our Mouraria says a lot – I was born and grew up in the Mouraria neighbourhood. Where there were lots of people we were dozens of children playin in the street, jumping rope, playing hide and seek, catchin – we interacted. Parents would talk at the window, talking from one window to the other, while they were hanging or taking down the laundry… It was a very intimate atmosphere, where eyeryone trusted everyone. There were those peculiarities that we don’t see anymore. And that has left a lot of saudades.”

Paula Alexandra Pinto (interviewed by Lambert Rozema, October 2024)

Saudades – a main theme characterizing Fado and reappearing in its lyrics – is also felt in the everyday life among the people in Mouraria. Rozema has talked with locals as well as nomads who immigrated to Mouraria. Whereas retired immigrants are happy to have found such a culturally rich and sunny place like Lisbon for, locals are having ambiguous feelings towards the changes in their neighbourhood. The artist resumes: “They are indeed resilient and quite angry, you know, about how things have gone.”

The sibling love between Mouraria and Alfama

Some things change and some do never… Mouraria still is one of the poor neighborhoods of Lisbon, whereas Alfama has developed into a strong tourist magnet. In Mouraria there are investors trying to make profit out of buildings by renovating them.

“My opinion about investors in Mouraria will always be good if they restore the buildings according to the typicality of the neighbourhood. The buildings are much more beautiful, much more refined, more appealing, with their balconies, with their attics, with their bright colours, with their tiles, with the joy and light that these neighbourhoods used to have and are no longer having.”

Paula Alexandra Pinto (interviewed by Lambert Rozema, October 2024)

Rozema himself furthermore analyzes that there has been some sort of competition between both neighbourhoods for a long time. “They want to always sort of do better than the other”. Back in the past, “it wasn’t even allowed for people to have a relationship between the two neighborhoods”. Today, his impression is that it is Alfama that gets even more attention from the tourists.

“I’ve walked through Alfama a few times and I felt that it was this, that’s almost like a picture postcard. It’s almost finished in terms of tourism. In Mouraria there is still some sort of authenticity to be seen, compared to Alfama.” (L. Rozema, 2025)²

Portraits of Fado with charismatic personalities

According to the legend, the Lisbon’s neighbourhood of Mouraria is the birthplace of Portuguese national symbol and music style Fado. To make this connection visible on the streets of Mouraria, british artist Camilla Watson has painted the faces of famous fadistas on walls. The Retratos de Fado street exhibition has been inaugurated in 2013.

Camilla Watson is originally from England and moved to Portugal. It didn’t take her a long time living in Mouraria until she got first in touch with Fado. “I mean, it’s just all around you and you hear it. You hear it in the streets.” One day, she had this inspirational experience that gave her the idea for the exhibition.

“There used to be a supermarket on that corner in the square. And all the windows, which had been closed, looked onto the Rue de Capelão. It was just horrible brick and concrete. And I thought, my God, this is just perfect, you know, frames. So that was part of it. That was how I would do it. The reason why the idea came was also because even though the birthplace of Fado is in Mouraria, there was absolutely no indication visible sign for it.” (C. Watson, 2025)³

So, she put her idea into practice; by collaborating with people from the neighbourhood who are very deep in the world of Fado. They chose the fadistas who should be part of the artwork. The result are portraits of musicians who were chosen by the people of Mouraria. And therefore “they feel it belongs to them, if something happens to a picture they’ll ring me up and go ‘Camilla this has happened!’” Even though the paintings are not perfectly visible anymore, the exhibition still fulfills its initials objective, which is…

“…to highlight that Fado was born in Mouraria, to include the community in a project and to give them some kind of pride about their history. And to give them a voice in that sense as well… And it brings memories. It’s historical, so it brings history into the present.” (C. Watson, 2025)

Walking along the street will make you connect with the souls of the people that are portrayed. You will get to read information about their lives on small panels, that have been researched and written by the fado museum, alongside the pictures.

Portraying the Legends that got to be remembered

The portrait of Fernando Maurício marks the beginning of the street. An informative panel next to the painting gives insights into his soul and life. The legend even appears twice in the exhibition – the Fado portrait no. 12 is also of Fernando Maurício, the fadista who himself was born in Mouraria. His former house is now open to the public.

“Fado was his life and Mouraria was his home. Between the status of the big stage and living in the proximity of Mouraria, he always preferred the second. A great fadista, an authentic voice, a free spirit, Fernando Maurício created a style of Fado. His interpretative style is characterized by a deep authenticity; where each phrase is given a sublime intention, with the musicality of the voice revealing the music of the words, merging both into the voice of a poet.”

The Fado museum about Fernando Maurício⁴

The second and third fadistas of the exhibition are Argentina Santos and Esmeralda Amoedo, followed by the Fado Queen Amália Rodrigues.

“With Amália Rodrigues Fado broke through borders and surpassed all ideological, poetic and musical barriers. Her voice conquered, once and for all, classical poetry. Her gifts took Fado to the world’s most prestigious stages. Acclaimed nationally’ and interationally as the Voice of Portugal, on a universal level she become a symbol of modem beauty for our arts and for our culture.“

The Fado museum about Amália Rodrigues

Among others, Camilla Watson chose to exhibit the Mouraria-born singers Fernanda María and Maria Ivone, fadista Francisco Martinho as well as Fernando Maurícios niece Ana Maurício. Contemporary famous singers Mariza and Ricardo Ribeiro are also part of the portrait collection. To feel their souls and stories, it’s worth taking a walk through the neighbourhood.

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1. Lambert Rozema (2024, October). Fachadas Da Mouraria [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/3hD0vR4xQ4c ↩︎
2. Quotes from my online interview with Lambert Rozema in October 2025 ↩︎
3. Quotes from my online interview with Camilla Watson in September 2025 ↩︎
4. Quotes from the panels alongside the Retratos de Fado exhibition ↩︎

Chapter 5: What real authentic Fado is about

When something mysterious, a sweet portion of nostalgia and the painful missing of something that is far from here is mixed together, that emotion is definitely worth to be sung about. In Portuguese language the word saudade describes this feeling of longing for something far. May it be as a feeling or as part of the lyrics – saudade forms a basic part of Fado’s identity.

In general, Fado melodies are simple. The lyrics, written like a poem, should oblate to the structure of the melody. There are two ways of composing a Fado melody, as Sara Paixão explains: A) take a traditional melody and write a poem specifically for this melody, which will make the song a new interpretation of an already existing melody; B) compose a new melody in alignment with new lyrics. To make a good Fado song “the tone of the words must fall in the tone of the song”. Sara compares it with “a dress that fits perfectly into a body”. Throughout the song, the same structure of a melody will be repeated several times.

Is saudade really non-translatable?

Most scholars relate the word saudade back to Latin origins, specifically the Latin word ‘soledad’ which literally means ‘loneliness’. However, a minority of researchers is claiming it to be connected rather with Arabic language, namely the word ‘saudá’, translated as ‘melancholy sadness’. Helena Ramos, Portuguese language expert, says: “The word saudade is celebrated as something very particular in our culture. But I think the meaning is very much like the German Sehnsucht”. It may not be the case in English language, but in general there are indeed languages that offer good translations for the feeling of saudade.

Walking through the alleys of Alfama, you will find several panels on the buildings’ walls that carry quotes about Fado on it. One of them says: É fadista quem canta como quem sabe ouvir em silencio. (“A fadista is one who sings, just as one who knows how to listen in silence”). The phrase refers to the idea that listening to Fado attentively is also a skill. Therefore, not only singing Fado, but also listening to it in silence, can make you a real fadista.

The mythical origin of Fado is related to the first female fadista Maria Severa. She was born at the beginning of the 19^th century to a poor family in the Mouraria neighbourhood of Lisbon. Her romantic affair with Francisco de Paula de Portugal e Castro, the 13^th Count of Vimioso, brought her and the Fado into aristocratic circles. She died in 1846. 

“It was only in the 1920s and with the emergence of a new generation of fado singers, such as Berta Cardoso, Hermínia Silva, Ercília Costa, and Alberto Costa, added to the state intervention by creating the profession of fado singers and enabling the establishment of fado houses that the genre would achieve the status of a national symbol. (…) The radio broadcasting and the record created the conditions for Fado to spread out of the capital and abroad, characterizing it as typically Portuguese in the eyes of other countries since before the Salazar dictatorship. (…) In continuity with the National Dictatorship that erupted in 1926, Salazar institutionalized his power project in the so-called New State from the 1933 Constitution and would remain in power until 1968.”

Barchi & da Cunha (2021)¹

Sara Paixão’s road into the Fado world

When Sara Paixão heard a Fado song herself for the first time, she felt like having made a great discovery – with an even greater outcome. She remembers the story very specifically.

“As a child, I used to share a mp3 device with my brother Tiago – one day it was mine, the other it was his. When listening to music I discovered the fado songs by Amalia Rodrigues. I would listen to them again and again. I loved and felt the songs so much that I investigated more about them and also about other fados. With time, I started singing along the lyrics.” (S. Paixão)²

In the beginning, she would do that only alone in her room. One day, when Sara was wearing headphones and was so soaked into singing the song that she didn’t realize it, her brother came into the room and heard her singing. He was so excited about her sister’s talent that he told the whole family about it. When their grandmother took note of it, she was especially proud of her granddaughter. Because there is something Sara herself didn’t know until then: Her grandmother’s mother was a Fado singer, too.

With the age of 16, Sara participated in an amateur competition that marks her first performance in public. She used to sing songs by other Fado singers and make her own interpretation of them. Until today she has also published own songs, composed with the help of other professionals. She says: “I only sing what I feel… Sometimes I give my composers an idea of a place or a feeling they should write about”. Thus, the songs are based on Sara’s soul.

How empathy and emotion shape Fado’s identity

Over all the past centuries and the political changes in Portugal, Fado has kept close to its characteristics – its sounds, themes and rhythms.

“The rhythm of fados is rocking and pendulous, reminding the waves of the sea. It surrounds the listener and takes him/her on a shared mood trip.”

García-Falgueras (2023)³

The emotional connection with listener and singer is probably the most precious thing in a live Fado performance. When she sings, Sara can feel the audience.

“…whether they are attentive, empathetic listeners or just there to say they have been there. It’s this touristic issue around Fado. Some people are just there because someone told them to go.” (S. Paixão)

On some days it happens that the audience would give Sara the energy to sing well. And on other days, the audience might take energy away from her, which makes it more difficult for her to perform the emotions she would love to. There might be people asking questions like, ‘do you also play songs in English or is it just in Portuguese?‘ or ‘can you translate the lyrics?‘. Sara always tries to clarify that explaining backgrounds during the performance would make her lose the focus and the moment lose its magic.

“What makes music so special is that it allows people to connect with each other, to connect with a singer, even when they sing in another language. For that, the listeners need to be open to receive. They shouldn’t be thinking too much, because it keeps them from letting their emotions flow. Music is connection, music is spirit.” (S. Paixão)

The powerful emotional effect of music has also been proven by a study about the effects of music, with the main finding: “While people are listening to or playing music, violence is far away from their minds” (García Falgueras, 2023).

Fado’s traditional identity carried from time to time

Traditionally, guitar players in the Fado scene have been men; at the same time the most recognized singers of the genre have been women. Thus, for Sara, as a young female Fado singer, it feels normal to be surrounded by men – may it be in fado houses or at stage concerts. The music experience differs very much in the different types of locations, both for the audience and the artists. As Fado houses have always been restaurants, they serve food, and people often eat during the presentations. This might be reflected in a lack of attention among the audience, especially in comparison to organized shows.

“At the concerts I know that people are there for me. In Fado clubs it often happens that the audience is not so empathetic or isn’t listening very attentively.”

But still, the presentation in a Fado club feels “more intimate, more informal, more personal and closer to the audience (…) you can try out more things”. Singing in a Fado house all days of a week can be exhausting for body, voice and soul of a fadista. During the day they need to recharge so they can put all her emotion into the performance of the night. Sara loves to perform in different Fado houses, each of them offers their own charme. She sings at Adega Machado, Clube de Fado and Tasca de Bela.

Is Tourism a curse or a blessing for Fado’s identity?

Fado houses are usually fully booked, mostly of tourists. Somehow, it’s the tourists enabling the musicians to express what they are most passionate about – the Fado.

“One of the great assets of Fado houses is the way they combine artistic performances with a characteristic menu, maximizing their profits. (…) The premature tourism, mainly foreign, generated a demand for both artistic expressions and constitutes up to the present time its strongest stability factor.”

Barchi & da Cunha (2021)

There might arise the question, if it is still an authentic Fado experience, when barely anyone in the audience speaks a word of Portuguese? Let’s say, as long as the fadista and the guitar players are true fado musicians, it should be considered an authentic Fado experience. And therefore, tourism can serve as a stabilizing element of Fado – strengthening it, expanding it in space, and conserving it in time.

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1. Barchi, F. Y., & da Cunha, F. L. (2021). Fado, Samba, and the interface between national identity, cultural heritage, and tourism on both sides of the Atlantic. In F. L. da Cunha & J. Rabassa (Eds.), Festivals and Heritage in Latin America: Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Culture, Identity and Tourism (pp. 29–43). Springer Nature. ↩︎
2. Quotes from my conversations with Sara Paixão in October 2025 in Lisbon ↩︎
3. García-Falgueras, A. (2023). Possible gender differences in classical music, Flamenco and Fado. Neuroscience Insights, 18, 26331055221147009. https://doi.org/10.1177/26331055221147009 ↩︎

Chapter 4: A choir of Fado echoes through the bairro

“Silêncio, que se vai cantar o Fado” – the fences around the Palco Caixa give us a hint of what will happen there in the next two days. Fado is about to be sung. The Caixa Alfama festival turns the bairro into an all-day fado paradise. Throughout the whole year, people sing Fado in clubs and restaurants of Alfama. But during this festival weekend, the voices echo even louder through all streets.

“Caixa Alfama is the festival that brings Fado, the intertwining of voices, the strumming of the guitar and the poetry sung on various stages in the streets and alleys of one of Lisboa’s most iconic neighbourhoods.”

Tourism of Lisbon (2024)

On the 26th and 27th of September singers and musicians performed Fado on 12 stages across Alfama. The schedules were tight, so visitors had to decide which concert they prefer to experience. Before the opening of Palco Caixa, the main field of the Caixa Alfama Fado festival, the cue to the entry was longer than I expected. People wanted to get the best seats for the concert of Pedro & Helder Moutinho.

After entering to the festival field, I move towards the first rows and choose an aisle seat on the left. When I sit down, I realize that I am right behind the woman who was before me in the cue – and I take it as a sign to stay there. At 20h the musicians, four male guitar players, come to the stage. The tuning sounds of their guitars give a first hint to the marvelous harmonies we will hear. They start playing a melody, then a voice appears from the back. It’s Pedro Moutinho singing, while walking towards the middle of the stage.

For the second song, Pedro moves a few steps back to sit on a table with a glass of wine and to listen to his brother performing the song Ja não te Espero. The following classic Garota da Mouraria, also sung exclusively by Helder, brings a delightful and quicker rhythm to the stage. Pedro, still sitting, now moves his hands and feet according to the rhythm. Then it’s his turn. With Rua de Esperança he presents his popular own song.

The magical opening of the Caixa Alfama festival 2025

After a few verses, Helder comes to join Pedro for a duet of the Fado classic Igreja de Santo Estevão, originally by Fernando Maurício. Their interpretation of the song is an enchantable duet, sometimes taking turns by stanza and sometimes by verse – culminating in both voices singing together. Helder has a very full and deep voice. Pedro’s voice has another colour that seems to be generally higher, more accentuated. Together they are like complementary colours – both enlighten each other even more when they are together.

Unfortunately, I cannot see the whole concert. The woman in front of me has already left when I get up from my seat. Maybe, just like me, she wants to see Sara Paixão. The Moutinho brothers don’t make it easy for me to leave. For a few minutes I watch the show standing behind the audience. From there, the concert feels different and – as they determine a big part of my sight, the audience somehow becomes part of the show. With my pretty fast walking pace, it’s only a five-minute walk from the main festival site to my second destination, the Igreja de São Miguel.

The stairs in front of the church are crowded and one of the security members explains to a woman that it’s only possible to enter with a festival wristband – “You need this!”, he says, pointing at mine. Proudly wearing my wristband, I go into the church. The ambient is uniquely impressing. At Palco Caixa, Pedro and Helder had a big stage; in a church like São Miguel the ornaments and architecture are enough to create a festive performance spot for Sara and her musicians. With her beautiful white dress, she shines like a diamond at the front of the altar.

A toast to traditional and emotional Fado

As I arrived after the beginning of the concert, I don’t manage to get a seat. Instead, I stand behind the benches, and together with many other people I form part of a huge circle around the church. Sometimes, there are movements among the audience – people leave or join. Mostly, they are respectful enough to wait until the end of the song. Next to me there is a woman wiping tears from her cheeks. Sara Paixão touches the audience not only with her beautiful voice and appearance, but also with her authentic personality. She describes her motivation to sing on that evening as follows:

“…because I believe music also has this power – the power to make us share what we feel. And I think we’re living in a time when we no longer know very well; I can’t even say what I feel, because it’s a mixture of emotions. I believe we’re all forgetting what’s essential, and that this divine stage reminds us that we are all made the same way – of the same matter.“

She spreads her energy amongst the people in the room, it fills hearts with grace, eyes with tears and forms lips to smiles. When she sings the dramatic Bomba Branca, she almost screams her soul out of her body, making it visible for everyone in the room. The rhythm of Lágrima do Mar is more friendly, spreading the feeling of swaying slowly from side to side. Melancholy slowly drifts away when she announces the last song.

“On the radio, in the car, right in the middle of traffic – when everyone’s tense – if this song starts playing somewhere, we love, the truth is we’re instantly transported and feel so much lighter. This song has a little choreography I’d like you to do with me. It’s very simple – I’ll even put the microphone down.”

Tapping her feet she shouts without microphone, tapping her feet, “Bate o pé!”, and then, clapping her hands: “E bate a mão!”. Sara animates the audience to practice this a few times and then make use of it in the following song. The acoustic conditions in the church are amazing and therefore this act, bringing together taps and claps from all corners of the hall, is a dignified end to a magnificent show.

Fado in churches and stages all across Alfama

The next concert is already waiting for me, in the next church, which was the title of the famous fado by Fernando Maurício we heard at the beginning: Igreja de Santo Estevão. When I walk through the steep alleys to get there, I hear the sounds of fado from all corners. Guitars and voices echoe from restaurants on the streets. I arrive at the church just in time for the singer appearing on the altar. Maria Emília greets everyone, first with an impressing fado, then with some personal words:

“I’m half Portuguese and half Brazilian – more Portuguese than Brazilian when I’m here, and more Brazilian than Portuguese when I’m there.”

And there is no song that would fit better to her roots than Saudades do Brasil em Portugal – which she sings now. Originallyby David Mourão-Ferreira,the fado starts with the melancholic lyrics “The salt of my tears of love created the sea that lies between us – to unite us, and to separate us…”

Also, with the following song choice she refers to her origins – it’s the Brazilian song De Volta pro Meu Aconchego by Elba Ramalho, that Maria Emília recorded herself as it is so important to her.

“…between two countries, I had to record this theme, because it makes me think of home and my origins. It brings back so many memories from when I was a small child, listening to my mother sing this song.”

From Brazil to Portugal, with love and saudades

The song is about the returning to an Aconchego – a Portuguese word for a familiar, protective place – carrying in her luggage so much saudades – the characteristic fado feeling of missing something that is not there.

“…and forgive my audacity in singing a Brazilian song at a fado festival – but each of us gives what we have to give, and those who give what they can, cannot be asked to give more.”

Maria Emília also presents her most famous single Dona do meu nariz– telling the story of an empowered woman who is capable to decide the paths of her life on her own. A highlight of the concert at Igreja de Santo Estevão is when she comes into the middle of the church, leaving her microphone behind. There, the guitarists stand around her in a circle while she is ecstatically singing using body and hands for expressing her emotions.

After the concerts at the two churches, I go back to the main festival place. It got dark and windy. I get myself a glass of wine and sit down to observe the people around me. With an inner smile, I reflect on the past hours, excited about what’s to come on the next day.

After the sun, comes the rain

On Saturday it got stormy in Lisbon. It took me some time to realize that bad weather conditions might influence the festival schedule. I stayed optimistic during the day, but at the same time reduced my objectives for the evening. And so it happened that my second festival day didn’t start as smoothly like the first one. From my first selected venue I was sent to another one, as the concert has been relocated due to weather conditions. Well, no problem I thought, I know the route to Igreja de Santo Estevão already.

It’s obvious that the church is too small for the audience. The crowd around the entry door makes it almost impossible to see or hear anything from the performance. On her way out, a woman says, “Don’t go in, não vale a pena”. So, I decide to go somewhere else. But where to? My intuition leads me down the road to the Fado museum, which is also part of the 12 festival venues. Not knowing who will play, I get into the cue.

Adding theatre to the Fado performance

All seats of the Fado museum’s auditorium are occupied, when the singer Vânia comes into the front area. She adds spark and lightness to the intimate atmosphere in the room. From the first moment, I can notice her background in acting and theatre. Her gestures as well as her mimics are strongly expressive, when she talks and especially when she sings. A charismatic aura lies in her sparkling eyes. Her voice is strong and so is she.

“I’ve been a nurse, and I currently work in the field of fertility and women’s health. This song is dedicated to all mothers – and to all women who are not yet mothers, but already carry motherhood in their hearts – Mão de mãe”

Somehow Vânia’s wonderful concert marked my personal finals of the festival. I knew it got windy and rainy outside, so I didn’t want to leave the museum at all. What I basically did then was moving from one place to the other, in the need for shelter, food and good fado. Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy to find any of it. On the main square at Palco Caixa they started tearing down the stage (without any kind of announcement). So, I went to Igreja de Santo Estevão again. There was a guy from the association Fado à Janela writing fados about concert visitors he talked with before. Another one presented them live for the first time. It made me think that in the end, each of our lives carries a Fado to be written.

Chapter 3: A marine biologist between ocean and stage

Visitors are already sitting on the chairs in Faro’s old chapel of the pregnant virgin when João Cuña enters the room with his guitar (Well, with one of his guitars… he has 40 in total.). The musician closes the doors to his Recital de Guitarra Portuguesa, and dims the lights saying: “Please turn off the sound of your phones. No photos, no videos, in general.”

The recital, located in the building of the tourist office of Faro, is not just like any other Fado place. The shows are created from the bottom of João Cuña’s heart, which you will feel during the shows. When he plays the guitar, all eyes in the room are on him. Only his own are shut. The rhythms and melodies seem to be found within himself, flowing through his blood. His words and his guitar sounds will guide you through a unique emotional journey. The room is small, allowing an intimate atmosphere with around five to ten people sitting in two rows of chairs.

“Here in this small room you capture many things. You start to understand that it’s a lot of psychology. It’s not only music, it’s psychology. (…) All cultures can understand, but still it depends on the individual if one enjoys it. (…) I feel a lot if you are enjoying or not. And sometimes I react. Yes it’s the ego. Somehow I want you to be with me. I’m giving everything so at least people should listen.” (João Cuña, September 2025)¹

João Cuña has friends from all around the world

He describes his show as a mix of music, cultural knowledge and emotion. Some jokes and surprises bring the laughs out of the visitors. And laughing is something very important in music, he thinks. After each song, he talks with the audience, telling them anecdotes as for example that in Coimbra Fado, people traditionally don’t clap but instead show their appreciation through clearing their throats. João explains this usually before he plays a Coimbra Fado. The outcome is what one would expect: no clapping among the audience. Something else, that no one in the room expects, is the moment when he gives his guitar to the visitors. His shows have been experienced by over 40.000 people, his guitars travelled through 80.000 hands.

“That’s unique. No guitar player gives his guitar to someone else. But I thought, why not? The people don’t expect it, it’s always a good surprise.” (J. Cuña)

The visitors come from different places in the world, but here, they are united for a little while of their lives.

“I had a guy from Finland who came 10 times. I told him, why, you know everything, the jokes. He says, ‘I want to feel the emotion, I want to feel the emotion again’” (J. Cuña)

When João plays the guitar, he plays with the guitar. Moving through the room and moving his instrument is “part of the performance”, as he puts it, and also a way to convey emotions.

“If I move with the guitar, listeners will see and also hear the guitar moving. It’s the way I play, the way I feel the music.” (J. Cuña)

Where is the fado, when there is no voice?

João remembers a Spanish guy who came to his show who disrespectfully threw in the room that ‘Music without voice is no music!‘. He thinks that for him as a guitar player it is more difficult to touch the people emotionally, yet it is possible. “That’s the reason I play.” And with this way of playing, he even made the Spanish guy admit that instrumental music indeed is music.

The Portuguese guitar has existed before the fado. Thanks to its use in Lisbon Fado and Coimbra Fado it survived over the years. The instrument has become so popular that musicians use it even outside the fado genre. As there are two styles of fado, there are also two types of Portuguese guitars. Both models have 6 double strings, other than a classic guitar which only comes with 6 single strings. The Lisbon tuning is B A E B A D when listed from the highest-pitched course to the lowest.

“The three lowest-pitched courses (D, A, B in low-to-high notation) are tuned with one string an octave apart from the other in the pair, while the three highest-pitched courses (E, A, B in low-to-high notation) are tuned in unison, meaning both strings in the pair are the same note and the same octave.” (J. Cuña)

As the expert explains, the practice of playing the pair of strings creates a full, rich sound with a “chorus effect” due to the micro differences in tension and tuning.

“These guitars are high-tension instruments with a wide dynamic range, which enhances artistic expression. This, in conjunction with the pairs of strings being played together, allows for beautiful, soulful vibrato making the guitar almost ‘cry’ and provides a vast range of volume intensities while playing” (J. Cuña)

The characteristic sound of the Portuguese guitar is determined by higher tonalities than other string instruments. This makes it a solist instrument, suitable for playing melodies. 

“Of course you can play it to accompany singers, but it’s the classical guitar that plays the rhythms. It has more lower notes. The Portuguese guitar on the other hand is the solist instrument, playing the answer for the singer, the introductions, the solos. Its sound is very important and characteristic for the fado. It’s like the Spanish guitar in the flamenco, the bandonion in the tango.” (J. Cuña)

Also, the way of playing the Portuguese guitar is special: only two fingers are active.

“The index finger plays in both directions, and the tumb plays only down strokes. All the songs being played on the Portuguese guitar are played with only two fingers in the right hand. It’s a funny thing.” (J. Cuña)

João Cuña describes differences between fado guitars

The sound of every guitar is determined by its shape and – of course by the tuning of the strings. Only for the classical guitar, there exist over 100 tuning systems. Portuguese guitars have another tuning which can be adjusted according to the preferences of the musician. Coimbra fado guitars are equipped with thicker strings that are tuned one tone below to be more suitable for the male voice. In Coimbra fado, only Coimbra guitars are accepted. A Lisbon guitar might have some problems after many years when you tune it lower than usual. For Lisbon fado, both guitars work equally well.

“I played many years also Lisbon fado with Coimbra guitars tuned one tone above, so they had Lisbon guitar sounds.” (J. Cuña)

Apart from the Portuguese guitar, João has also a collection of classical acoustic guitars. He shows me his magical one that can record and repeat his playings. That makes it suitable for composing: João invents the rhythm and lets the acoustic guitar do its magic. Thus, he is able to play the melody on the Portuguese guitar simultanously.

The musician treats his guitars like family

As he appreciates each of them, the musician baptized them: The Portuguese guitar he currently plays on in the recital is named after his daughter ‘Rita’. But there is more to it. His “beautiful babe” is named after his wife ‘Tânia’. Then there is Mammy ‘Nanda’, which is the diminutive of his mother’s name Fernanda. And the guitar grandmammy is ‘Graciosa’, because the name of the luthier was Grácio and also because it means ‘graceful’.

The Recital da Guitarra Portuguesa is João Cuña’s own room for Fado that he opened in 2012, guaranteeing a stable work and income. Before, he played in many different places, also in the capital Lisbon where he is originally from. Nowadays, he continues to perform on stage with Pedro Mendes and Francis Matas, just as he has since 1994, when he founded the world music trio AMAR GUITARRA.

Combining passions: the marine biology and the music

Already as a young boy, at the age of 12, João Cuña started learning to play the guitar. Later he has also developed a passion for the ocean and the environment, which he intensely explored with his studies in marine biology at the Universidad de Algarve. Throughout many years, he has followed these two passions, working both as a marine biologist and a musician. When he was 37, he decided to fully focus on the music. “And then I began starving”, he jokes with a wink, referring to the difficulties of financial surviving in the cultural industry. Today he is 55.

When Covid came he had to close the recital. After a few days he thought that this would be the perfect moment to put an idea into action that he has always thought of but never really had “the time and muse to do it”. He created a proposal which was recognized and financially supported by the Portuguese government. S. A. V. E. Ria Formosa is the title of his immersive live music and video experience.

“It’s my life musical project. I thought I have to do it before I die.” João presents 8 original compositions in 3 parts. Throughout the narrative in the video he combines ecological with personal inspirations. S. A. V. E. is a unique experience, which melts live performance with cinematic recordings of landscape and music. João Cuña would perform live the melodic response to the rhythms played in the video. Usually, in the live performance he wears black. And in the film – wandering along the beaches of the nature reserve at Ria Formosa with his guitar – he wears white. Like Yin and Yang, the Portuguese guitar and the acoustic guitar complement each other to form a harmonious whole.

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1. Quotes from my interview with João Cuña on September 23^rd 2025 in Faro ↩︎