-by Josef Woodard

For what promises to be one of the greatest world music events of the year in Santa Barbara, the great Portuguese fado singer Mariza returns to town next Friday at Lobero Theatre, after having wowed the crowd at Campbell Hall in 2004. That's great news for the local limb of the world's fado fans--a growing contingent, thanks largely to Mariza's ascending fame in the last five years.

But actually, the concert here will come two days before a more unconventional and news-grabbing event at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. When Mariza performs there Sunday, the hall's designer, Frank Gehry, will have designed a special one-night "taverna" stage for the occasion. Gehry wanted to honor the humble roots of fado--a Portuguese musical tradition with sounds roughly comparable to flamenco in Spain, bossa nova in Brazil and blues in the United States.

Mariza helped inaugurate the still-young Disney Hall as part of the 2004 tour of Southern California that brought her to Santa Barbara. Gehry is a friend and fan of Mariza's work and of the city and culture of Lisbon, in general. In a recent phone interview, Mariza said, "I love Frank as a person, not only as an artist He's very sincere and transparent, and I love people like that."

Asked if her career has gone better than expected, she says, "when you don't expect nothing, everything that appears or everything people give to you is more than a blessing I feel very blessed with my life. I never expected nothing of this. I was a very normal singer, and then people starting paying attention to me and inviting me to sing all over the world. I feel very happy to have people who try to understand me, as a singer, my music and my culture."

She was born Mariza Reis Nunes in Mozambique, in Southeastern Africa, in 1973, the daughter of a Portuguese father and African mother. But she grew up in Mauraria, the area in Lisbon where fado has always prevailed, regardless of the rising and falling general popularity of the music in her country.

Singing fado began in early childhood, but Mariza remembers branching out into western styles, including soul and jazz. She says, "I was listening to fado in my neighborhood, but outside of my neighborhood, I was listening and trying to understand other styles of music."

Fado's lure grabbed her again in her mid-twenties and she made a recording for friends and family. A Dutch label expressed interest in releasing it, and that 2001 album, "Pado em Mim," became a career launching smash, having sold more than 140,000 copies in Portugal alone, so far. She has since made a few more albums, including the recentCD/DVD "Concerto em Lisboa," and her reputation has been gaining momentum around the world.

"I can't imagine my life without singing," she says, "My mother told me that when I was two years old, I was already dancing and singing, I think it was born with me. My life has always been surrounded by music.

"People ask me ‘when you get old, what are you going to do? There will be a time when you are not going to tour so much and are not going to be able to sing like you are at this time,' I say 'well, maybe I'll buy a tavema in my neighborhood, in Mauraria, and I'll sing there.' I'm going to sing until my last days. I can't imagine my life without music, without singing."

Mariza talks about a recent visit to New York City, where she stopped last week to sing on David Letterman, perform at Carnegie Hall and to introduce a new film about fado, directed by Spanish director Carlos Saura. The film prominently features Mariza, naturally.

Another memorable recent experience in New York City, though, found her an enraptured audience member at Tony Bennett's concert at Radio City Music Hall.

"He was singing at 80-something years old, with this powerful voice, and singing beautifully. He still has the charisma and everything. Maybe that could happen to me," she says, with a laugh. "If it doesn't happen, we'll still have the movie to capture what I was like when I was young."

Her concerns about the distant future are moot at this point. At 34, Mariza's fully in her stride, and is bestowing the wisdom of her music--individually and culturally--on a world anxious to listen.