CENTENNIAL CELEBRATIONS

 

Universal artist, Amália Rodrigues (1920-1999) is one of the most important personalities in the history of music in the 20th century. Her international career was one of the longest and most global in the 20th century.

In the 21st century, her legacy remains alive, modern and timeless. In the splendor of her metamorphoses and cycles, Amália Rodrigues’ vast phonographic heritage has long affirmed her as one of the best singers of our times.

Since her professional debut in 1939, at Retiro da Severa, Amália has been a phenomenon of popularity. She overwhelmed audiences, sparked passions and the most lively debates. In the post-war period, Amália Rodrigues was already a major figure in the Portuguese music scene.

With an absolute success in Portugal, her international career was one of the most apotheotic and the most global of the entire 20th century. The world was her natural stage and her voice the privileged instrument to sing all Portuguese poetry, from the troubadour and Renaissance repertoire to contemporary literary creation.

In Spain, Brazil, Mexico, the United States, France, Italy or Japan, Amália Rodrigues achieved an unprecedented consecration, successively acclaimed and idolized by the public and critics. Throughout the world and over the years, Amália Rodrigues has received the most prestigious awards and the highest decorations.

Popular and erudite, modern and timeless, the legacy of Amália Rodrigues gives us, in images, the powerful immanence of the great themes of our culture. In the chiaroscuro of her voice, we recognize the most universal expression of emotions in an unlimited inventory of feelings. Heteronym of Portugal, from her voice we made our home and not even her international media coverage managed to erase the feeling of closeness to which her disarming simplicity has accustomed us. But just like the song, Amália Rodrigues belongs to everyone and belongs to no one.

The celebration of the Centenary of his Birth in 2020 and 2021 will be a unique occasion for us to gain a clearer and more founded awareness of the importance of Amália Rodrigues in the contemporary cultural scene.

In 2020, the Centenary of her Birth is marked through a vast program.

The official opening of the Commemorations of the Centenary of the Birth of Amália Rodrigues will take place in Lisbon, on July 1, 2020, extending the celebrations until the end of 2021.

Developed within the framework of a network of partnerships involving museological and archival institutions, bodies linked to the audiovisual sector, municipalities, among many others, with strategic objectives of safeguarding and enjoying the universal memory of Amália Rodrigues, the Commemoration Program is based on programming of the institutions the supervision of the Ministry of Culture and the Lisbon City Council.

With an epicenter in Lisbon and extending to the entire national territory, the celebration of Amália’s legacy will take place, simultaneously, at the international level, assuming the opening of this program to civil society, in a collective celebration of an artistic legacy that continues to affirm the name of Portugal in the world.

Both starting and arrival point for so many places like music, poetry, theater, cinema or dance, Amália’s plural legacy has long affirmed her as one of the greatest creators of modern times. Throughout her extensive artistic biography, her voice spoke openly with creators of all arts: poets, musicians, painters, writers, filmmakers or stage directors. For this reason too, the Centennial program was designed from a multidisciplinary perspective, unfolding into 9 structuring programmatic axes:

MUSIC

HERITAGE | RESEARCH | SAFEGUARDING

EXHIBITIONS | PUBLIC ART

FILM | THEATRE |DANCE

AMÁLIA TRAILS

CONFERENCES | CHATS | COLLOQUIA

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMES

EDITIONS |REISSUES

INTERNATIONALISATION