Fado figure
Goan singer Sonia Shirsat is finding notices in the world of Portuguese
music
By Vivek Menezes
“A girl named with a Hindu name, who doesn’t even speak Portuguese
properly, and she wants to sing our fado?” Sonia Shirsat was all smiles,
recounting shocked faces and the incessantly rolling eyes she
encountered when she started learning to perform the iconic moody,
mournful singing style of Portugal.
It’s a reaction the attractive 30-year-old Goan singer quickly became
accustomed to – each step of her journey as a professional fadista has
required persuading accompanists and audiences to take her seriously in
the first place. But first in Margao and Panjim, then in Macau and
Lisbon, she’s steadily won over critics and the public alike. With the
release of her first solo album, the excellent Saudades de Fado,
Shirsat’s now demonstrating that she’s a fadista with global potential.
Early reviews indicate that the young singer with an uncannily powerful
voice just might become India’s first musical sensation in the
Portuguese-speaking world.
Fado is a relatively new musical genre. It first appeared in the
nineteenth century, built around soulful vocal laments and serenades,
accompanied by one or two instrumentalists playing Portuguese or
classical guitar. Historians often claim African slave antecedents for
the fado, and there also seems to be an obvious Islamic influence
derived from centuries of Moorish occupation of the Iberian Peninsula.
But diverse origins notwithstanding, fado has become central to the
Portuguese national identity. When Shirsat showed up to sing in Lisbon
for the first time, she created consternation. Who was this Indian girl
with the big smile? What was she doing here?
Shirsat was born into the kind of mixed family that is increasingly
becoming the norm in India’s smallest state. Her father is a Hindu
doctor who met her Catholic mother while studying medicine in Panjim.
She grew up in rural Ponda, then studied commerce and law before taking
up a job as lecturer in a law college. All along, she sang. “I started
at home, singing along to the music we listened to in the family,
matching my voice to Whitney Houston and Toni Braxton,” she said.
Outsized talent always apparent, Shirsat won every major singing
competition in Goa while still in her teens, led a band to the
semi-finals of the Saregamapa Challenge on Zee TV in 2000, and even won
a trip to France that year for topping the national French Nightingale
competition sponsored by Alliance Française.
Then she found fado at a Portuguese guitar workshop organised in Panjim
in 2003 by the Fundacao Oriente, an international NGO dedicated to
preserving Latin cultural heritage in Asia. A singer was needed to
accompany some of the pieces, and Shirsat was asked to learn a fado. It
fit her voice perfectly. Upon his return to Portugal, the workshop
facilitator, Antonio Chainho went on national television and announced
that a potentially great fadista had been discovered in Goa. A few
months later, Shirsat found herself in a “house of fado” in Lisbon’s
Alfama, waiting for a turn in front of the audience. It was
make-or-break time. Could she compete with the best on their own turf?
“You have to realise that fado isn’t just music to the Portuguese,”
Shirsat told Time Out on a rainy, grey afternoon at Panjim’s Kala
Academy cultural centre on the Mandovi riverfront. She was attending a
workshop conducted by Patricia Rozario, the Mumbai-born opera singer who
has established herself as one of the leading vocalists on the UK stage.
Shirsat noted that the fado is “absolutely sacred” in Portugal, a
cherished symbol of national identity like the flag and the anthem. It
took her months of singing every night in Lisbon, across two separate
trips, to understand, “to reach the deeper meanings and emotions beyond
the lyrics and tune”.
On October 10, 2008, she held her debut concert in Lisbon, entitled
Mundo Fado, built around the idea that the fado is a global genre, with
songs in Hindi and Konkani interspersed with original Portuguese. The
night before, tickets sold out. Shirsat was in all the newspapers the
next day, and all the television channels trooped in to interview her.
“I realised that it was a turning point in my life,” she said with
another broad smile. “At that point in time, I really understood that I
could do it, that I could make it in the world of fado.”
Many years ago, Patricia Rozario was a talented outsider trying to make
it in an insular European musical genre. It took decades of tireless
effort for her to break into the elite ranks of the classical music
world of the UK. “Sonia shows all the signs of a truly great singer,”
Rozario said. “Her sound comes from deep within her, an organic creation
that’s absolutely riveting.” Rozario recalled the stir that ensued when
she first walked onto a European concert hall dressed in a sari, and
compared it to Shirsat’s brave efforts in fado. “Look, this is your
time, this is the time for India and Indian singers,” Rozario said. “We
can make it happen, but we have to dare to enter the door, to come to
the front of the stage.” She turned to look at Shirsat, who was
listening with a determined look on her face. “Take courage,” Rozario
told the fadista from Ponda. “People are going to be amazed.”
Saudades de Fado, Rock and Raaga, ` 250. See www.soniashirsat.com for
audio and video clips.
Source : Time Out Bengaluru
http://www.timeoutbangalore.net/music/music_details.asp?code=130&source=4
