Prime Minister Luis Montenegro this Monday mourned the death of the Portuguese musician Fausto Bodalo Dias and considered that “the contribution he made to music and Portugueseness is eternal.”
“The music of Fausto Bordalo Dias has enchanted us for decades. It is with deep regret that I receive the news of his death, which does not mean his disappearance,” the Prime Minister wrote on the social network X.
Fausto Bordalo Diaz, creator of Por Este Rio Acima, died this morning at the age of 75 at home in Lisbon from a long illness.
The musician spent his childhood and youth in Angola, where he began to take an interest in music, assimilating African rhythms, which he combined with the rhythms and modes of the Portuguese popular 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.
“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.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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