To raise the curtain on the 60th edition of the Porta Ferrada Festival in Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Brazilian singer and songwriter Marisa Monte stars in the inaugural concert today (Espai Port, 10 pm).
Accompanied by her band, she will focus a large part of her repertoire on the songs from her latest album Portas, although in her long concert she will offer an anthological tour of her repertoire. La Vanguardia subscribers have a 15% discount on the price of tickets, as long as they buy them at Vanguardia Tickets.
Last year he released a new album after almost a decade without releasing anything under his name. How was that?
When I finished the last tour, I made a live album and a DVD. After that, I carried out what we could describe as collaborative projects with several interesting artists, they are dialogues that I really enjoy, but that during my tours I cannot do for a simple matter of lack of time. Thus, I shaped the Samba Noize project at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York; I did a national tour with Paulinho da Viola; a still unreleased album, an international tour and a live album with the Tribalistas. I already had the repertoire ready and was about to enter the recording studio when the pandemic arrived and hit us all. And it is that after that phase of collaborations I knew that it was the moment to return to me, so to speak, since I lacked my solo expression.
In this pandemic period, have you been more prolific writing and composing?
I’m telling you, when the pandemic started I was about to enter the studio, I had the repertoire ready, but we had to postpone everything for almost eight months until things were clearer. During that time I ended up doing more songs. It was a big challenge to find a place to record, but we faced it with great care and responsibility. We opted for a mixed production method, that is, alternating face-to-face recordings in Rio de Janeiro with remote recordings in Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, ??New York and Los Angeles. To my surprise, the technology allowed us to experiment with forms of relationship that we would never have tried if it hadn’t been for the extreme necessity and the truth is that it ended up working very well. In this sense, the digital connectivity of the contemporary world was very remarkable during the pandemic. And the result is that Portas ended up being my album with the most international collaborations, in more different cities, without leaving Rio and without losing the warmth or the collective spirit.
In this sense, what was the composition process for Portas? Did you already have the idea and the collaborations in mind before the outbreak of the crisis?
During that period I worked a lot on various collaborations. I maintained and renewed my associations, I learned by living with other artists such as Paulinho da Viola, Arnaldo [Antunes], Carlinhos [Brown], Arto Lindsay, Seu Jorge, Chico Brown Silva and Marcelo Camelo. It was a time of maintaining and expanding my associations by creating a new repertoire.
Do you think that these songs, now after covid, have a therapeutic effect on those who listen to them?
I share all the feelings of uncertainty, anguish and fear of this tragic moment we are experiencing, but through art I wanted to offer a poetic, creative and loving resistance. I am happy to contribute so that people have a superior existence through the exploration of the imaginary. And I like my music to be like an escape in these uncertain times.
Before, he was talking about Tribalistas, his project by Arnaldo Antunes and Carlinhos Brown. Are you in good health?
We are three artists with independent careers and we don’t see Tribalistas as a group but as a collective project. We made our first album in 2001 and we are still friends and partners. We have never stopped with this relationship. We made a second album of our project in 2018 and we are still three artists who came together to make this idea a reality without ever being considered as a band.
What is the secret of Tribalistas?
It is a great example of camaraderie, of a sum that has a result that goes beyond the pieces. Carlinhos Brown was once asked if we were like soccer players and he replied that we would be like a three-legged player. Sounds like a good definition to me.
How are the concerts of this European tour?
On this tour I have a dream team and musicians with experience as producers, who know how to listen to each other and serve the group. Dadi, Pupillo, Davi Moraes, Pretinho da Serrinha, Chico Brown, Antônio Neves, Eduardo Santanna and Lessa are virtuous, sensitive, inspired, love what they do and dedicate themselves body and soul to music. I thank each one for their company along the way for exchanging, adding and learning with them. Its sound nourishes and inspires my singing. On the other hand, I have a very wide repertoire, after so many albums, and I always try to rotate the songs. There are a lot of hits, songs that everyone knows, they kind of move naturally in the repertoire over the years. It is also a very intuitive choice that has to do with the balance of the songs that dialogue with the moment and with others.
I must ask you to finish: after all these years, how do you explain why the Brazilian people elected Jair Bolsonaro as president?
Difficult to understand, this is one of those questions that has no answer. Perhaps in the future political scientists will be able to look back and understand what has brought us to this situation.
