Portuguese star, Luisa Sobral in Maitisong Festival line-up

Portuguese platinum album-selling singer songwriter and Golden Globes Award nominee Luisa Sobral joins the star-studded line-up of this year’s Maitisong festival. She is expected to perform at Thapong Visual Arts Centre on April 23 as part of the evening’s free live entertainment.

Prior to Sobral’s maiden show, a thrilling performance of theatre and poetry will whet the appetite of entertainment lovers at the same venue.  Sobral is a composer, lyricist, performer and a multi-instrumentalist. She has three albums out and has won critical and public acclaim both in Portugal and abroad. Her first album titled ‘The Cherry on my cake’ was released in 2011. And in the same year according to her biography, she received two nominations for the Golden Globes Awards under the Newcomer and Best Individual Performer categories.

One of the most sought after artistes in Portugal, she has performed to sold out concerts in some of Portugal’s most iconic venues of the main festivals. “Towards the end of 2011, she kicked off a promising international career by performing at the International Jazz Festival in Barcelona at the Cartegena Jazz Festival and the Sala Galileo in Madrid,” says her biography. The following year, she appeared at the Union Chapel in London supporting Ute Lemper.

She returned in November to support Melody Gardot at the Barbican Centre as part of the London Jazz Festival.  The show led to her going on tour with Melody Gardot, performing at shows in Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne and Hamburg. “She was invited to perform two songs on the iconic British programme, Later with…. Jools Holand, a truly impressive feat.

She was also invited to compose a tune for ZON’s 2012 Christmas campaign,” says the bio. She composed and sings the theme tune to the children’s series ‘O Bairro do Panda’ on the Panda Channel and one of her songs, ‘A Minha Estrela’ was selected by the Fadista Ana Moura for inclusion on her acclaimed album Desfado released towards the end of 2012. Her second album titled, ‘There is a flower in my bedroom’ came out at the beginning of 2013 and shot through the charts.

To date she has performed in concerts in major venues across Europe including France, England, Spain, Germany, Swirtzerland as well as Turkey, Israel, Morocco and China. Her third album, ‘Lu-Pu-i-Pi-SA-Pa episodes’ was released in 2014.  “It features some of my childhood episodes, some experienced by me, others by my friends or kids from my school. The play yard, lunch time, the school door, football fields were used to play ‘Mata’ and some of other memories that stuck to me,” Sobral says of the album. [Additional information courtesy: www.luisasobral.com]