Beatriz da Conceição

Beatriz da Conceição (Porto, 21 August 1939) is a Portuguese fado singer. Her discography includes performances with António Rocha for Paul Van Nevel with the Huelgas Ensemble. A native of Porto, Beatriz da Conceição is one of the leading fado singers of the last 50 years. As a child she listened to the great fado singers on the radio, without ever having the ambition to become a singer herself. But when as a young woman in Lisbon she visited the ‘fado house’ of Márcia Condessa and in her enthusiasm began to sing along, she was recognised as a major talent. Beatriz was asked immediately to sing a solo and was offered a contract that very night. It was the start of a long career that is still in full swing. Beatriz has sung in the principal fado houses of Lisbon and has enjoyed success outside Portugal as well, at the Atlantic Waves Festival for example. Her international breakthrough came in the 1990s. While the fado was declining in popularity in Portugal itself, the genre was, in common with other worms of world music, becoming more popular in other countries. In Belgium, for instance, she was discovered by Paul van Nevel and the Huelgas Ensemble. Together with them, Beatriz da Conceição recorded the CD Tears of Lisbon, a pioneering encounter between fado and 16th-century Portuguese music. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.