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"Sounds of Cape Verde"

Cesaria Evora; Tcheka

Saturday, June 9 • 8pm

“Noble and heartbreaking.”—The New York Times

Program Notes

In the late ’80s Cesaria Evora single-handedly carried the musical riches of Cape Verde onto the international music scene. For generations, the creole culture (a mix of African, Portuguese, and Brazilian) on this small cluster of islands off Africa’s western coast birthed a number of distinctive musical forms, but for generations the music was available only to locals and the infrequent tourist.

Evora specializes in the morna, a Cape Verdean form drawing on the island’s many musical cultures: Portuguese fado, Brazilian modinha, Argentinean tango, and Angolan lament. The melancholy palette of the morna finds its perfect expressive vehicle in Evora’s voice, a beautiful instrument tempered by a life tinged by its share of sadness.

A noted singer in her youth, Evora quit performing in the mid-’70s, frustrated by personal and financial problems and the political instability in Cape Verde. She returned to singing in the late ’80s, but found little success until Josè Da Silva, an expatriate Cape Verdean living in France, invited her to record an album in Paris. 1988’s La Diva aux pieds nus (“The Barefoot Diva”) was Evora’s breakthrough album in France. International acclaim followed with the Grammy-nominated international success, 1992’s Miss Perfumado.

“What delights me today is the happiness of having got through all the years of suffering to better enjoy the life I live now,” Evora said. “At home, we say it's better to drink the venom first and the honey later. Now, I'm drinking the honey.”

Evora’s success opened the world’s ears to the music pouring forth from Cape Verde. One of the talented musicians that benefited from that recognition is Manuel Lopes Andrade, more familiarly known as Tcheka. The guitarist and songwriter is part of a younger generation of Cape Verdeans uncovering the rich store of [Cape Verdean] folk rhythms” (Independent, UK) merging traditional batuque beats with jazz-influenced instrumentalism.

Batuque is a traditional percussion-based music from the island of Salvador, where Tcheka was born. His father, a famous Cape Verdean violinist, carefully oversaw Tcheka’s musical education and gave him his first onstage experience. His own music career soon took off on the strength of his debut album, Argui, and two songs recorded by Lura, another popular young Cape Verdean artist. Tcheka’s second album, Nu Monda, released in Europe in 2005 (and will be released in the U.S. this spring), won him the prestigious Radio France International “World Music Prize.”