SAUDADE: fado in a new light - Annelien Van Wauwe, clarinet & Anaïs Gaudemard, harp

SAUDADE: fado in a new light

Annelien Van Wauwe clarinet

Anaïs Gaudemard harp

Cradled in the arms of Portuguese fado, melancholy tastes deliciously sweet.

Did you know that Annelien Van Wauwe is a fado superfan? In the recital of her dreams, she lets the clarinet sob and whisper in the language of Amália Rodrigues. With harpist Anaïs Gaudemard as fellow fado enthusiast, she captures the melancholy of Marceneiro and the rawness of Carlos Zel, pouring it into virtuoso embellishment and husky melodies. A road trip through Lisbon that wanders from abandoned harbour docks to the dimly lit taverns in Alfama.

Programme: Fado music by Amalia Rodrigues, Alfredo Marceneiro, Carlos Zel and others (arr. Emile Daems).

The love of clarinetist Annelien Van Wauwe for Fado began in her teenage years, when she first encountered the deeply melancholic yet comforting sounds of this Portuguese genre.

Intrigued by the emotional intensity and pure expression of Fado, she travelled to Portugal multiple times to experience this music live. The longing, the warmth and the power of the voices, the graceful ornaments and the brilliant dialogues between the guitars left a deep impression on her. Moreover, the bright, sparkling sound of the Portuguese guitar is strongly reminiscent of the harp, and no instrument embodies that transparency better than the harp of Anaïs Gaudemard – one of the absolute stars of her instrument.

In this programme they bring fado in a way as it has never been heard before: the warm, lyrical 'voice' of the clarinet and the delicate brightness of the harp melt together into an intimate, new sonic world. With works by masters such as Amália Rodrigues, Alfredo Marceneiro and Carlos Zel they pay tribute to this genre, which comes so close to classical music.