‘Gisèle João (fado)’

Most people are surprised when they hear of the lukewarm reception which fado singer Gisela Joao received during her first concerts in Lisbon. She even considered giving up at one point. But then her first album was an astounding success. Two weeks after it was released it was already in the number one spot in the top 20 of the best-selling albums in Portugal. The critics soon ran out of superlatives. She received the best compliment from a journalist of the Portuguese newspaper Público, who crowned her the Amália Rodrigues of the twenty-first century. So Joao is proof that it pays to soldier on. This season she will perform sold-out concerts in all the major European cultural centres. So we recommend booking early.