As part of our Off Site programme we are bringing North Eastern singer and rabeca player Renata Rosa to Glasgow and Edinburgh in August 2018.
Renata and her band will arrive at Glasgow Cottiers theatre on Thursday 9thand Edinburgh St Vincent’s Chapel on Friday 10th. She will also give a polyphony singing workshop at the Scottish Storytelling Centre on the 11th.
Her debut performance in the United Kingdom was in 2017 in Glasgow at the international festival Celtic Connections where she mesmerized a full City Halls auditorium.
She brings entrancing sounds of north-east of Brazil enriched with the subtle inclusion of East European, Middle Eastern and North African influences. Her powerful voice, embracing polyphony and ritual-like singing, originated in the local tribal singing style where she originally trained as a singer. (An example is “Jurema”from the latest album.) Her band will accompany her with ten- and seven-string guitars and the percussion that is characteristic of the Brazilian Pernambuco state.
Her new album Encantações was chosen in the Top of the World list in Songlines magazine.
What is the rabeca?
The rabeca is a type of violin of Arabic origin, introduced to Brazil by Portuguese colonizers. Rosa learned the instrument from the hand of master player Luis Paixão.
Her singing skills developed from the age of 17 when she started spending most of her holidays with the Kariri-Xocó tribe in Alagoas. Renata took part in numerous tribal rituals and got used to singing at their houses, which has highly influenced her ornamented singing style.
Over the last 15 years, Renata has played more than 200 concerts across Europe performing in major concert halls and at renowned festivals. She performed concerts for the Musée du Louvre and for the Théâtre de la Ville of Paris and in 2016 she joined the artistic team of the Rio 2016 Olympics games to compose the opening song of the Summer Olympics.
