"i feel the fado and that's why I sing it.
fado is saudade.
it is the expression of saudade.
fado brings with it love, jealousy, betrayal, passion and even hate."

Luciana Machado was born in the Parish of Ponta-Garça, Vila Franca do Campo, on the Island of São Miguel, Azores. the fado found echo in the young Azorean, as its sorrowful lament mirrored the tragedy that luciana suffered at a very tender age and which has haunted her all through her life: the extemporaneous loss of her beloved parents as a child. Her voice, full and sensual like the sun filled wines of our country, soon seduced all those who heard her. Encouraged by the reception of her audiences, luciana has, since then, never ceased to lend her voice to Lusitanian sentiment, except for a brief period, during which she married and brought three children into the world. Although she has, throughout the years, made several incursions into the world of popular music, it is the fado that grips her passionate spirit.

"I adore fado. it transmits all my feelings. My parents died when i was very young. fado expresses all that sadness, the loss of my parents. The more tragic the fado, the more i feel it, for it brings back memories of my childhood."

She immigrated to Canada in 1969, where she has pursued her career as a fado singer within the Portuguese communities. In her country of adoption, she gives voice to the saudade and memories of the luso peoples, who, far from the homeland, hear her voice as their own. A much respected and loved artist, she has performed alongside some of the very best Portuguese performers such as manuel almeida, paulo carvalho, celeste rodrigues, linda de susa, and has been accompanied by some of the masters of the Portuguese: jose pracana e fontes rocha, among others.

Muse? - " amalia."
Favourite lyricists? - "pedro homem de mello and ary dos santos.

Favourite Fado? - "povo que lavas no rio, for it portrays the reality of my childhood."

She had first hit with "escreva-me na lama", with lyrics by jose pereira and music by antonio amaro and tony melo. It was launched in cassette on the local market in 1980. Ever since then, luciana has been unstoppable, having as sole mission the perpetuation of that most Portuguese tradition of all, the fado. One of her most recent hits is a fado version of a well known song by jorge fernando, "a valsa dos amantes."

On April 12, 2002, luciana launched her latest CD, this time a co-project with another well known local name, humberto silva. In this production, the two singers are accompanied by the guitarists, manuel moscatel (Portuguese Guitar), januário araújo (acoustic guitar) e nelson câmara (bass).

On her Children and the fado: "both my sons are musicians. Rui is a bass player and Ricardo plays the guitar. he has just recently started on the fado guitar."

Advice to young fado singers: "to express yourself is always worthwhile, as is to pursue a dream. if one has the opportunity to make it come true, one should put one's talent to good use and diffuse our fado that should never die. fado is the continuity of our roots"

Note: Saudade is not directly translatable into English or any other known language. It expresses a sentiment, feeling or emotion that is peculiar to the Portuguese. One of our Canadian collaborators, Laura Pearsall, has captured the essence of the word extraordinarily well, coming very close to its full meaning.

"There is no word in English synonymous with saudade. Now that I think I understand it, I am surprised at how often the word "homesick" is used in translation, as this is really an inadequate term. "Reflective" is closer, and so is "nostalgic", and my Portuguese dictionary defines it as "a soft remembrance", but even all these terms together don't quite capture the meaning entirely. If you have (or feel) saudade, you are thinking of something with a little sadness, a little longing, a little wistfulness, a little aching, a little happiness. "You are flooded with remembering", Luis says. "Saudade brings everything to your mind - all of the life surrounding what you are missing - all the context of that thing, place or person…. The saudade prompted by Fado is not necessarily sad and may not even remind people automatically of home. But the Portuguese hearts respond to the music, because they have a tacit awareness that human life and the human heart is partly composed of empty, unfilled spaces. Those unfilled, quiet spaces, clear of the urgency and the rush of our demanding lives are necessary and must remain open if we want to leave room for the remembering and for the acceptance of life as it is. Saudade surges in like the sea to softly fill those empty spaces now and then- with memories of people, of words spoken or left unsaid, of the lives we have lived, of the love we have given, accepted or wasted. Saudade is, like the final cry of the lark, not merely a lament or remembrance for what has passed, but a wish for more life and more time to live it well."