The Portuguese singer Cristina Branco will always remain the artist who made fado salonfähig in the Dutch polders. Since her album (2000) she has been fully embraced here and regularly tours Dutch theaters. How will that theater audience react to material from her album Branco? Well, over the years she had already let the melancholic fado music celebrate a bit and, for example, admitted tango to
… her repertoire. But Branco mainly resounds chanson and acoustic pop music. Branco asked young Portuguese musicians and songwriters for this new approach. This works out surprisingly well. With her expressive voice and clear diction, she still makes Portuguese a musical language that you can feel as non-Portuguese. Melancholy and temperament - with which she sometimes almost to the crown - predominate. On the beautiful Branco she shows herself to be much more than a fado singer, without losing any of her passion. (MR)more