dimanche 3 décembre 2006

My sleepless night with Cesaria

Last night was another of these sleepless nights for me, thinking and turning around and around in my bed, reading a book, watching television hoping that some of my troubles would go away, trying to find solutions, rethinking etc etc, a real sleepless night.
So television helps to make you sleepy but last night I watched this wonderful documentary about the Capo Verde Islands and ofcourse they talked about Cesaria Evora. Her music finaly made me peacefull and my mind was getting a rest while I listned to the exceptional sounds.

Cesaria Evora, born in 1941 in the port town of Mindelo on the Cape Verde island of Sao Vicente, is known as the barefoot diva because of her propensity to appear on stage in her bare feet in support of the disadvantaged women and children of her country.

Long known as the queen of the morna, a soulful genre sung in Creole-Portuguese, she mixes her sentimental folk tunes filled with longing and sadness with the acoustic sounds of guitar, cavaquinho, violin, accordian, and clarinet.
Evora's Cape Verdean blues often speak of the country's long and bitter history of isolation and slave trade, as well as emigration: almost two-thirds of the million Cape Verdeans alive live abroad.

"Morna is like the blues because it is a way to express life's suffering in music."
Evora's voice, a finely-tuned, melancholy instrument with a touch of hoarseness, highlights her emotional phrasing by accenting a word or phrase. Even audiences who do not understand her language are held spell-bound by the emotions evident in her performances.

Now 54, and a grandmother (though never married), Evora is gladdened by her current worldwide popularity,
"... in all those years when I sang in bars and in front of strangers I sometimes had an idea I might someday be successful outside my country. The thought never stayed with me for very long, but here I am."

1 Comments:

At 10/12/2006 10:34, Blogger Michael van Eekeren said...

Music soothens, music the language of emotions, the greatest art of all.

 

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