Mariza

Katie D.

April 25, 2009 - 11:00 PM

I lost my heart tonight.

I know that's kind of a dramatic statement, especially following so closely to that dramatic renunciation of all foods not grown organically. I guess I'm a bit drama-prone this weekend. But my heart was stolen away and I might not ever be the same again.

Her name is Mariza, and she's a Portuguese folk singer. Fado is the style, which means a "melancholy destiny."

Portuguese is such a beautiful language. And Mariza is a life-changing performer. She has this incredible presence that filled the entire concert hall at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts. She spoke to us in English and sang in Portuguese, and I can't even remember ever hearing a human voice sound so beautiful.

Mariza's performance group included herself, three guitar players, a drummer, and a piano/keyboards/trumpet player. The musicality of the group was just incredible, and I have never heard any style of music quite like Portuguese guitar. It is reminiscent of Spanish guitar, but with different rhythms and sound. Not that I'm an expert, but that's my humble interpretation of it. There is actually a guitar made specifically for Portuguese folk music, the Portuguese guitar.

Mariza told us a story about being a little girl in a new neighborhood, leaving her mother's country of Mozambique to live in her father's country of Portugal. The neighborhood was full of Fado music, and her father soon opened a music hall every weekend. She started singing for the neighbors when she was five years old. Then she would sneak back to the hall after she had been put to bed, wanting to enter into this atmosphere and belong there.

Whenever I go to a performance like this, I immediately want to learn some performing art. I regret my abandonment of the trumpet and French Horn that I played in high school, and wonder why I've owned a guitar for years and still haven't mastered the whole "strumming" idea. I want to learn to dance and drum and play the didgeridoo if that will allow me to participate in the creation of a performance like that. Imagine performing a song you wrote that every person in the audience can sing to.

Maybe it's just starry-eyes and big dreams. Hero worship. My resolve to practice guitar or harmonica or salsa dancing never seems to last long, just like my resolve to attend bluegrass concerts on a regular basis hasn't yet panned out. But it's a recurring theme that these kinds of events just tear me apart, and make me want so badly to look that joyous and confident in the accomplishment of some task.

This time, though, I felt like a part of the whole production. Mariza taught us some Portuguese words, which was fun, but more importantly talked about the impact her tours to hundreds of communities and cultures has had on her personally and on her music. She had the crowd shout out what countries they came from, and we had nationalities as diverse as South Africa, Thailand, Algeria, Italy, Guatemala, and "Portland." What is so great about this is that all those people were there, together. We all have that experience together. And that is a great and beautiful thing.

So I'm not sure what to do now that I'm home and kind of bouncing around my room. It's too late at night to try for some harmonica practice, and guitar just makes me sad because I am SO BAD. I'm seriously considering some Portuguese lessons, and maybe taking some tango lessons. These things are not directly connected anywhere but in my own mind, perhaps, but it seems so essential to be able to get out there and project something beautiful and uniquely yours to a crowd of people. Maybe it'll never happen for me.

But at least tonight I can go to bed feeling changed, and completely challenged and renewed by the artistry demonstrated this evening. Fado is a new favorite, and I think Mariza is now my number one most impressive vocalist, which is really something considering the number of fabulous musical performances I have seen. But if you'd been there, you would understand. Her presence filled that hall, just like her voice did on her final encore song, when she and two guitars performed un-amplified in that huge hall. I have never heard such silence in a crowd of people, nor have I ever heard a vocalist so completely fill a room on the power of voice alone.

To Listen to Mariza click here.