Bernardo Branco seeks to bring the territory and the surrounding social reality closer.
In the album Cantar de Ouvido, which will be released in the near future, there’s room to sing about the rural everyday life, past disaffections, hair loss, popular festivities, rural exodus or a latent conflict between popular and erudite music. Such a conflict results in fusion, which is executed with the legitimacy of someone who listens to urban music right in the middle of the village, but has already hummed Oliveirinha da Serra in Lux’s terrace.
The beats resort to throat singing, the adufe, a hip-hop drum kit, the broken rhythm of an unpleasant voice and ad-libs. Auto-Tune is used as an expressive resource, boldly present in some of the melismatic moments close to fado.
music
8 out. > 18h
Approx. 60 min. ☺ M/6 ☺ Free entry
Bernardo Branco
Bernardo Branco
Singer Bernardo Branco is from Ribeira Ruiva, Torres Novas. His sound lies somewhere between the Almonda River and Pink Street (Lisbon), featuring a latent conflict between village and city, tradition and modernity, calm and vertigo. He studied piano since he was 6 years old. He attended the Choral Phydellius Music Conservatory, and then the singing course at the Lisbon School of Music, where he also studied composition under professor Eurico Carrapatoso. He played Captain in the opera Eugénio Onegin, by Tchaikovsky, at Coliseu do Porto, and he was a member of several Portuguese choirs, such as the Gulbenkian Choir, the Lisbon School of Music Choir and Choral Phydellius, having been directed by maestros such as Paul McCreesh, Gustavo Dudamel, Paulo Lourenço, João Branco and José Matta.
These experiences resulted in a dead end, acquaintance with the scores of masters such as Mozart, Bach, Mahler and Lopes-Graça, and the secret desire to defeat the baton and give substance to the music he shyly, yet steadily, created in his bedroom, amounting to more than 50 unknown songs.
These experiences resulted in a dead end, acquaintance with the scores of masters such as Mozart, Bach, Mahler and Lopes-Graça, and the secret desire to defeat the baton and give substance to the music he shyly, yet steadily, created in his bedroom, amounting to more than 50 unknown songs.

© João Faria
music, lyrics, vocals, guitar, piano, samples Bernardo Branco
sound technician Rafael Prazeres
technical and image support João Faria
production and management OSGA