Fortuna (Brazilian singer)

In the 1980s, while staged her first plays, she composed a repertoire of songs in partnership with the Curitiba poet Paulo Leminski (1944 - 1989). The decisive chapter of his career, however, would begin to be written after a trip to Israel, in 1991. It was there that Fortuna’s art won an innovative orientation: when she heard a piece of the Ladino collection of songs, she found the raw material for a unique aesthetic proposal, in which music, dance and dramaturgy converge in the re-creation of a rich cultural legacy. The Ladino, a Jewish-Hispanic dialect, is the language of Sefardim, the Jews of Sefarad, Hebrew name of the Iberian Peninsula.

The contact with the Ladino musical tradition would change the life of Fortuna and give a new direction to her work. There she began a job of research and rescue of medieval songs that remained practically forgotten. The result of this research brightened her trajectory. In the following years, she would record, independently, her seven CDs: La Prima Vez, Cantigas, Mediterrâneo, Mazal, Cælestia, Encontros and Novo Mundo. With international distribution, the discography of Fortuna adds up to almost 100 thousand copies sold. The recordings have received critical acclaim and were featured on weighty awards. Mediterrâneo won the 10th Sharp Music Prize as best disc produced in a foreign language and the American label Putumayo, specialized in collections of "world music", included five songs recorded by Fortuna in their recent releases.

The shows staged for each of the disks led Fortuna to present herself with great success in several Brazilian capitals, such as Recife, Porto Alegre, João Pessoa, Manaus, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, in addition to the international tours, with passages by Paris, New York (in an acclaimed presentation at the UN headquarters), Miami, Amsterdam, The Hague, Antwerp, Évora, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Caracas and the celebration of the 3,000 Years of Jerusalem.

In addition to having provided the substance for the development of her musical career, the work of historical research toward the recovery of forgotten musical traditions qualified Fortuna for a parallel activity: the artistic direction of the Festival "Todos os Cantos do Mundo". With seven editions made by the SESC - São Paulo, the event revealed artists whose music does not play on the radio stations and that hardly would make presentations in other stages in Brazil.

In charge of the festival, Fortuna has been able to maintain a permanent connection with the most diverse forms of musical expression. This sort of exchange gave her work a new consistency - that is reflected in the evolution of her voice, the sophistication of arrangements and in the choice of collaborators. The best examples of this opening of horizons are found in the CDs Cælestia, recorded with the Choir of Benedictine Monks of the Monastery of St Benedict (SP), Encontros, which in addition to the Benedictines includes the participation of the Choir of the Guri Project, formed by children and teenagers in Osasco (SP) and Novo Mundo, in which appears the Pernambuco artist Antonio Nóbrega. The collaboration of the guests results in a work that goes beyond restoring the tradition, giving it a new direction.

Her program "Todos os Cantos" has been prospecting the musical gems all over the planet. Aired by Radio UOL over 12 years, the program was a true milestone in the history of Internet radio.

Currently "Todos os Cantos" is transmitted by Rádio Cultura FM, which is also accessible online.

As an actress, Fortuna participated in the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical José e seu Manto Tecnicolor, directed by award-winning Iacov Hillel. The success of the show, which is also focused on children and teenagers, has awakened the artist's desire to direct her focus to the juvenile public. New projects so were born.

In November 2008, the singer released, in a production of the SESC label, the CD, the DVD and the show Na Casa de Ruth. In the repertoire, poems os the writer Ruth Rocha with music by Hélio Ziskind. Naum Alves de Souza directed the show. Over 4 years, the show was seen by more than 20 thousand spectators.

The track on the CD Na Casa de Ruth "Doze coisinhas à toa que nos fazem felizes" was part of the soundtrack of the soap opera Carrossel, aired by the television network SBT.

In October 2012 Fortuna released the CD Tic Tic Tati, with poems and stories of the writer Tatiana Belinky, also with music by Hélio Ziskind. Produced by the SESC label, in 2013 the work received two indications for the 24th Prêmio da Música Brasileira in the categories Children’s Album and Visual Project.

The musical, created for the release of the CD, is directed of Roberto Lage, and is another success with the public and critic. The show was recorded and turned into a DVD, with a bonus of 03 animations directed by filmmaker Tatá Amaral.

Released in October 2014, the DVD Tic Tic Tati was winner of the 2014 Governador do Estado Award, in the category "Art for Children", by popular vote.

Renowned in the Brazilian music scene for dedicating herself to investigating and rescuing Jewish musical sounds, melodies and traditions, singer and composer Fortuna is currently working on a project that goes beyond this.

Fortuna’s new musical project brings innovations in relation to her previous work. More authorial, Fortuna signs the composition of five of the thirteen songs of the CD and show repertoire. Fortuna threads the path of the Eastern Jews who left Aleppo (Syria), and Jews from the Middle East in general, singing themes in Arab, Hebrew and French. This trail goes through Sefarad (Spain and Portugal) and gets to Brazil, where the figure of Branca Dias – whose memory is the topic of one of the new compositions – symbolizes the meeting of the Old with the New world.

In NOVOS MARES, music is faced as an essential driving force to reach an intercultural dialogue between people from different nations and religions, but who have the language of music in common.

Fortuna is a Brazilian female singer-songwriter of Sephardic Jewish background, and a researcher of the Sephardic tradition since 1992.

Fortuna, whose stage name is Fortunee Safdié Joyce (born in São Paulo, Brazil, c. 1958), is a Brazilian singer and composer of Jewish origin. She has been studying the Sephardic repertoire since 1992. Fortuna has recorded seven CDs and one DVD since then. She has worked on a number of occasions with the Choir of the Monastery of the Monks of St Benedict in São Paulo, and with the Guri Choir, composed of children and adolescents in the city.

Fortuna sings mainly in Hebrew and Ladino, a language used by Sephardi Jews who inhabited the Iberian Peninsula until the fifteenth century, at which time they were expelled by the Catholic Monarchs and scattered through several countries of the Mediterranean basin.

Discography

• 15 Years Collection (Coletânea 15 anos)
• At Ruth's House (Na casa da Ruth - CD and DVD)
• New World (Novo Mundo)
• Meeting (Encontros)
• Caelestia (CD and DVD)
• Mazal
• Mediterranean (Meditarrâneo)
• Songs (Cantigas)
• The First Time (La Prima Vez)

External links

• http://www.fortunaoficial.com