Carla Pires

Available festival 2025 – Season 2025/2026
VaiVem/20 Anos released September 2024
05 March 2021 – Release of Carla Pires’ fourth album “Cartografado” Ocarina Music | L’Autre Distribution

A MAP OF FADO

In this new album, Carla pires highlights the richness of Portuguese music with multiple roots; Both urban and rural, national and itinerant …

Gathered around the theme of travel, the songs on the disc draw on several repertoires, from classic fado to the poetry of Paul Eluard.

Like a traveler along the roads of the world, she thus draws a “fado map” where each step, each unexpected encounter plunges the listener into suspended time, following the route of the influences of fado and summoning sounds at the borders of the world. genre: flamenco bulerías in the footsteps of the Vira, the traditional Portuguese dance.

Carla Pires began her singing career in 1993, participating in several musical projects, recording soundtracks and playing roles as an actress for TV series in Portugal. For three years she played the young Amalia Rodrigues in the successful Portuguese musical about this fado idol.

Carla Pires established herself as a fado singer in 2008, when she embarked on a 10-concert tour of France and also performed in Spain, Austria and Algeria. Since then, she has constantly toured internationally, entertaining audiences in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America with almost 400 performances around the world.

Some of the highlights were performances at prestigious venues such as Osaka Symphony Hall, Okayama Symphony Hall, Hiroshima Bunka Gakuen Hall, Kobe International House, Nakano Sun Plaza-Tokyo (Japan),  Graz Opera (Austria), Vlaamse Opera Gent, Södra Teatern (Stockholm, Sweeden), Concertgbow, De La Mar Theater, Schowburg Roterdamse, Rasa (Netherlands), Cirque d’Hiver and Théâtre de la Ville(Paris, France), Teatro Solís (Montevideo, Uruguay) and many others.

Following her debut album Ilha do meu fado (Ocarina,2005), Carla released Rota das Paixões (Ocarina/World Village, 2012).

In 2014, at the invitation of the prestigious Portuguese choreographer Vasco Wellenkamp, Carla Pires embarked on tour of 42 dates through The Netherlands with the show Fado, a co-production between the Portuguese National Contemporary Ballet and the International Danstheater (Amsterdam) about Fado, with live music performed by the singer. This show won the Audience Dance Award 2014.

In 2015 (March 14th, 18th and 25th  and April 10th, 12th, 17th, 18th, 23rd and 26th) – Carla Pires accompanied by her three musicians and by the Grazer Philharmoniche Orchester, performed at Graz Opera in the piece “Malambo” which integrates the contemporary dance project “Fado”, with a new choreography by Vasco Wellencamp for the Oper Graz Tanzkompanie.

Pires’ third solo album “AQUI” was released in April 2016. “AQUI” sings of the city of Lisbon – female, free, diverse – where so many genres meet fado, such as tango or samba… and where they find a natural union in the voice of Carla Pires and the instruments of the musicians.

Following the launch of the album, 2017 saw the start of the “Aqui World tour, with concerts in France, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Poland and a 14-concert tour of Japan, between 28 October and 14 November, at the best venues of the main cities: Kasaoka Civic Hall |Okayama Symphony Hall |Arkas Sasebo |Hiroshima Bunka Gakuen Hbg Hall | Higashi Kurara Hall |Izumo-Shi Shimin Kaikan |  Kobe International House  |Osaka Symphony Hall (2 concerts) | Nara-Ken Bunka Kaikan | Wakayama Municipal Auditorium |Joyo City Cultural Center | Nakano Sun Plaza Hall (Tokyo)

Highlights  

AQUI World Tour Tour of 14 concerts in Japan, from October 28 to November 14, 2017, in the best venues of the main cities.

FADO won the Dance Audience Award 2014 (Danspublieksprijs) for the best performance in the Netherlands. Carla Pires was the fado singer for this performance (February 2015).

Showcase at Babel Med Music, Marseille (March 30, 2012)

Performance at the Universal Exhibition of Japan in representation of Portugal (May 22, 2005)

1st prize at the Thessaloniki Festival (Greece 1996), organized by the European Societies of Authors on behalf of the Portuguese Society of Authors (SPA) with the song “Canção do Vento e da Terra”.