Musician Fausto Bordalo Diaz dies

Musician and composer Fausto, creator of “Por Este Rio Acima”, died this Monday in Lisbon at the age of 75, his artistic agent told Lusa.

“Fausto Bordalo Dias died this evening at his home after a long illness,” a spokesman for the Ao Sul do Mundo agency said.

Carlos Fausto Bordalo Gomes Dias was born on November 26, 1948, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, on board a ship called Pátria, bound for Angola, where he spent his childhood and youth and began to take an interest in music, assimilating African rhythms, which he combined with the rhythms and modes of the Portuguese folk tradition. However, his first group was part of the pop movement of the 60s and was called Os Rebeldes.

He settled in Lisbon in 1968 when he entered the former Ultramarina Institute of Social Sciences and Politics, now ISCSP – University of Lisbon, to obtain a degree in socio-political sciences.

Joining the association movement brought him closer to composers such as José Afonso, Adriano Correia de Oliveira, Manuel Freire, and later José Mario Branco and Luis Silla, who were already living in exile.

It was during this time that he recorded “Chora, amigo chora”, which in 1969 won him the Revelation Award in the old radio program Página Um, broadcast by Rádio Renascença.

“Pro ​​que Der e Vier” (1974) and “Beco sem Saída” (1975) are his two first works, marked by a revolutionary experience.

They were followed by “Madrugada dos Trapeiros” (1977), which includes the song “Rosalinda”, “Histórias de Viajeiros” (1979), which now opens with “Por Este Rio Acima” (1982), his great success, inspired by the work of Fernand Mendes Pinto “Peregrinasan”.

For the film “Para Além das Cordilleras” (1989), he received the José Afonso Award.

“O Despertar dos Alquimistas”, “A Preto e Branco”, “Chronicles of the Burning Land” are his other albums.

In 2003, he wrote The Magic Opera of Cantor Maldito (2003), a look at the history of Portugal after 25 April.

In 2009, together with José Mario Branco and Sérgio Godinho, he performed the show “Três Cantos” about the repertoire of the three musicians, which later laid the foundation for the album of the same name.

“With Fausto, this is a whole journey through the universe of sounds, collective memory, the deepest feeling that unites us as a community,” says the page dedicated to the musician.