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A Singing Citizen of the World
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Standard-Times, A Singing Citizen of the World >>
Sara Tavares brings her eclectic style to Boston
-by JENNETTE BARNES
World music talent Sara Tavares says she finds" a sense of belonging through her music, one that has sometimes eluded her, an ethnic Cape Verdean born in Portugal and raised without her parents.
"My sound is a little bit like my identity," she said. "Crioulo."
An acclaimed singer- songwriter whose latest album, "Balance" (Times Square Records, 2006), went gold in Portugal, the 28-year-old Ms. Tavares comes to Boston this weekend for her second performance in the city, on the heels of a show last summer.
She will appear Saturday at 8 p.m. at Berklee Performance Center.
In an interview from Lisbon, she said her primary influences are traditional Cape Verdean and other African music, Portuguese folk, and black American music, especially Motown.
Her guitar and vocals incorporate the Cape Verdean genre coladeira, jazz, bits of reggae, samba, fado, hip hop, and African rhythms.
Her lyrics, she said, are written in a highly personal singer-songwriter style. She sings mainly in Portuguese, with a sprinkling of English and Crioulo (Cape Verdean Creole, a mix of Portuguese and West African languages). She is one of just four musicians worldwide nominated as Best Newcomer in the 2007 BBC Radio Awards for World Music, alongside artists from Niger, Somalia, and Senegal. The prize debuted in 2002 and has become known as the "Planet Awards". Winners will perform at a concert in May at the Barbican Centre in London, home of the London Symphony Orchestra.
Ms. Tavares is appearing in Boston under the auspices ofWorld Music Inc., Cambridge-based non-profit group that promotes world music.
Executive Director Maure Aronson said Ms. Tavares is "a phenomenal songwriter, great musician, and fantastic voice."
The language barrier for English-speaking audiences is really no barrier at all, he said. "The music just needs to be good. It needs no translation," he said.
In publicity materials for the show, World Music said Ms. Tavares "sings for a generation between cultures."
"Tavares began a search, both physically and musically, for her roots," the group said.
She worked with veteran African musicians in Lisbon and traveled to Cape Verde, Haiti, and Zimbabwe. The result, her newest album, is "an affirming and joyous musical meditation," the group said, "on the feeling of belonging nowhere, and how it often leads to the feeling of belonging everywhere."
Ms. Tavares lives in Lisbon, but feels like a citizen of the world.
When she was a child, her father left to pursue work opportunities in America, and her mother moved away, leaving her to be raised by an older Portuguese woman in Lisbon.
Growing up without her parents, she said, shaped her desire to search for a sense of belonging in her music.
At 16, she won two televised national music contests in Portugal. Originally a gospel funk, and soul artist, she has gradually blended more African music into her work.
"Balance" is her second album. Her first release, "Mi Ma Bo," came in 1999, following an earlier EP
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For tickets and information about the show, call World Music at (617) 876-4275 or visit worldmusic.org. The Berklee
Performance Center is located at 136 Massachusetts Ave., Boston, and ticket prices are $28 and $22.
Contact Jennette Bames at jbames&s tcom or (508) 979-4446.
01/18/07
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