Fado Route

17 September 1979 (Singer)

Like several fado singers of her generation, Ana Moura isn't afraid to incorporate pop music into her fado. Her distinctive timbre and the passion she puts into every note caught the attention of the fado world early on. Her career took off quickly, even internationally. She has sung at Carnegie Hall in New York, has recorded and performed with the Rolling Stones and took part on stage with Prince. She is one of the biggest and most recent fado stars.

27 January 1938 (Guitarist and composer)

António Chaínho learnt to play the guitar from his father and at 13 performed in public for the first time. He has played for the greatest fado singers of various generations and has taken part in international events beside major soloists like Paco De Lucia and John Williams. Besides being a distinguished performer, Chaínho is also a composer and has worked tirelessly to promote the Portuguese guitar.

13 June 1944 (Guitarist and composer)

He began as a musician playing in restaurants in the Alentejo region, where he was born, but it was in Lisbon where he developed a career that saw him play at the top fado houses and accompany great fado singers like Alfredo Marceneiro, Amália Rodrigues, Carlos do Carmo and Tristão da Silva. Besides being an excellent perfomer, he is also a composer and has dozens of fado songs to his name. He is on the teaching staff of the guitar school at the Museum of Fado.

14 March 1919 - 18 September 1993 (Singer, lyricist and composer)

One of the leading lights of "fado jocoso", during the first half of his career António dos Santos specialised in this type of humorous fado, singing a very distinctive style that he quickly popularised. In the 1960s, he earned the epithet of "the ballad singer of Alfama", a neighbourhood where he lived for almost his entire life and where he ran a very successful fado house. Besides a singer, he was also a distinguished lyricist and composer. "Gaivotas em Terra" and "Partir é Morrer um Pouco" are two of the songs he wrote and which achieved major success. 

20 June 1938 (Singer and lyricist)

His vocation as a fado singer emerged at an early age. At 13, he won his first fado competition and at 18 went professional, under the protective wing of the singer Deolinda Rodrigues. His popularity in the sixties earned him the title of "King of fado". Author of most of the poems he sings, António Rocha has always striven to write his own material. He was the resident artist at several of the most renowned fado houses and a singing teacher at the Portuguese Guitar School at the Museum of Fado.