GABRIELA
MENDES - CAPE VERDE
P r e s e n t a t i o n |
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Gabriela Mendes - Cape
Verde
...P r e s e n t a t i o n...
"It is at four years old by listening to my mom singing
at the house that I discovered the pleasure of the music of my country. Good
musicians as the violinist Malaquias came often to rehearsal at the house to
play in religious cultural evenings." Gabriela Mendes sang in the nights
of "tocatina" at all the bars of the Cape Verde Islands, took part
in great festivals, in particular that of Santa Maria on the island of Sal,
that of Praia Cruz, cradle of the morna, before meeting her producer. Didier
Jeanne a French fisherman, adventurous, married the dreams of the girl with
the pure heart. Gabriela will make her appearance in France on December 15,
2006, in the China Club. For us it is a budding diva! The opportunities to perform
abroad are rare, "my islands are far from the world", but the young
woman, is already serious and deep, lengthily meditated on loneliness, nostalgia,
the "sodade", she dreams today to transmit to the public of the whole
world the history and the traditions of Cape Verde".
Gabriela Mendes was born in 1973 at São Vicente islands
within a simple family, her father is from the island of Boavista, he was obliged
to emigrate abroad to work for his family and her mother is from the island
of S. Nicolau, she raised her children at the house in São Vicente.
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Since small Gabriela was in contact with the music so much
by her father who played guitar than by her mother who sang in the religious
festivities. Many musicians regularly came to rehearsal at the house and Gabriela
observed them, she adored to see her mother singing and admired her much. During
Gabriela's childhood she felt hard the absence of her father, she often wrote
letters to him and some times by listening to mornas in the radio with her mother,
they cried of nostalgias while dreaming of his return.
Originating in a catholic family at 6 years old Gabriela enters
the Salesiana School where she forms part of the choral group of the priest
Cristiano. His great musical knowledge and by his engagement fascinates the
small girl, Father Cristiano becomes an outstanding presence and he transmits
to her a strong passion to sing.
At 15 years old, Gabriela is already the soloist of the choral
group of the Nossa Senhora da Luz parish in São Vicente, she remembers
her first frustration: "When the Saint Father Jean Paul II came to São
Vicente, I had prepared the psalm during almost 2 months, the mass would be
celebrated in the football stage in front of 50.000 people but the day before
I caught cold and suddenly I remained without voice..."
At 17 years old Gabriela travel throughout the world (Sweden,
the United States, Costa Rica, etc) and then she understands for the first time
the word "Sodade = Nostalgia". She is far from her country and its
people, but with the dream to know new horizons. She returns two years later
while having learned how to love her country and traditions.
In 1997 Gabriela leaves for the Fogo Island, where the traditional
practices and feast are still quite present. There, she finds loneliness; the
village is very calm... She comes into contact with the nature of the island,
at the same time mystical and captivating; she can better analyze her interior
world, see and understand what happens around her by feeling the need for being
expressed. The music is the only form which she found to release from her interrogations
and anxieties.
Thus she starts to write poems and to attend the nights of
"tocatina" in which she takes part. It is at once that Gabriela discovers
the pleasure of singing mornas and coladeiras, to share emotions with the public
"and when I arrived at home I felt richer". Later it was the musicians
who invited her to sing in the "tocatinas" which occurred from bar
in bar during all the night.
In 1998 at the time of the concert of the singer Cesária
Évora in the island of Fogo, Gabriela filled with wonder decides to follow
her desire to be a singer and comes into contact with the Bau musician, with
whom she asks to help her to work her voice and also so that he lets her take
part in some concerts. The musician accepts and return to São Vicente,
Gabriela sings in the bars and restaurants of the island and in the festivals
of the country.
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Contacts:
Casa da Morna
CP. 701 - São Vicente, Republica de Cabo Verde
Tel. 00 238 992 36 56 / Fax 00 238 232 69 36
casadamorna@hotmail.com
www.gabrielamendes.com
www.nocturne.fr
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