BIO - ENG
JOÃO FARINHA, was born in Coimbra, Portugal, in January of 1976. FADO is in his blood. Coimbra runs through his veins. With his father, João Farinha entered, still a boy, in the fascinating world of Coimbra's fado, sharing with some of the biggest names, of this unique kind of Portuguese music, of the second half of the 20th century. It was a love that stayed, for life, and that was ignited again in a luminous and perennial spark as soon as he wore the black student's costume of the oldest Portuguese university of Coimbra, where he graduated in Management. Then he knew that FADO would shape his future, with a hint of premonition, years later, after a kind of initiatory experience at the Academic Association of Coimbra (AAC), in the challenging years that followed the academic traditions restoration.
He studied singing at the Coimbra’s Music Conservatory, and improved his skills by the baton of maestro Virgílio Caseiro and by the male choir of the Fado Section of the AAC - Schola Cantorum. João Farinha will be one of the artists in the creation of the Fado Ao Centro project, the group that today asserts itself for the defense and promotion of Coimbra's fado, inside and outside its borders, as never before.
In collective name - Fado ao Centro (2011), or in individual name, João Farinha - who in the meantime he had founded, the fado group ÆMINIUM (1998), but also the Coimbra Ensemble Group (2005) and sung in the Choir of the Former Orpheonists of the University of Coimbra (2006) - continues the path he chose: creation and interpretation , covering new paths and opening up unexplored territories for Coimbra's fado.
João Farinha, accomplished singer and composer, embraces the boundless passion for Coimbra’s Fado and the uniqueness of evoking its roots, taking them further and making them germinate in a time that is new and full of challenges. Present in more than a dozen record titles, the artist's original compositions have already been heard on stages around the world, from Brazil to Japan, passing through Canada, the United States of America, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, Austria, Poland, Romania, Russia, Morocco, Cape Verde, Hong Kong, Macau and Vietnam.