Duarte was born in Évora on the 20th of November 1980 and spent his childhood and adolescence in the village of Arraiolos.
With only seven years old, Duarte began his musical learning and began to sing fado, but during his adolescence he chose to explore other musical styles, going through several musical projects in the pop/rock line. Until 1997 Duarte attended the Academia de Música Eborense. While still at this institution, he was part of the Coral Group and some chamber music projects.
Duarte was a music monitor and participated in the promotion of some music therapy sessions in Private Social Solidarity Institutions. He studied at the University of Évora and belonged to the Tuna Académica of this academy, having completed his degree in Clinical Psychology in 2003.
It was also in 1997 that Duarte discovered fado again. Since then, Duarte has been effectively dedicated to fado, starting with promoting fado nights in his hometown, in 2001 at the Café Alentejo Restaurant and, later, in 2002, at the Bota Alta Restaurant/Casa de Fados.
His first record, entitled “Fados Meus”, was presented in July 2004. In this record, Duarte chose to combine traditional fado songs (Fado Vianinha, Fado Zé Negro, Fado Marcha do Manuel Maria, Fado Mouraria estilizado, Fado Alexandrino Antigo, etc.) poems by Fernando Pessoa, Aldina Duarte or Maria Teresa Grave, but also three themes with poems of her own (“Naquela Manuer Deserta”, “Being the Night Almost Day” and “They Say My Fado is Sad ”), and also the track “Évora Doce”, with lyrics and music by him.
After the release of the album Duarte performed in numerous concerts in Portugal and Spain. And, in that same year, his theme “They say that my fado is sad”, a poem of his in the music of Fado Menor do Porto, was part of the collection “Fados do Porto”, included in the collection “100 years of Fado”, organized by the newspaper “Público”.
From the end of 2004, Duarte also began to perform regularly at the Senhor Vinho fado house, at the invitation of Maria da Fé and José Luís Gordo. At the same time, the fado singer integrates various presentations and shows, radio and television programmes, interviews and concerts, of which we highlight the performance at the “Young Fado Night”, organized by the Lisbon City Council at the Fado Museum; participation in a “Fado Night in Homage to Fado singer Carlos Zel”.
Aware of the interpretive qualities of this young fado singer, the Amália Rodrigues Foundation awarded him, in November 2006, the prize “Fado Revelação Masculina”.
In 2007, Arraiolos City Council awarded Duarte the Medal of Municipal Merit – Cultural Section. That same year he was nominated for the Mais Música 07 Award, from Revista Mais Alentejo.
Between November and December 2007, Duarte expanded his scope of performances with a season of concerts at the Teatro Polis in Athens, Greece, at the invitation of the composer Evanthia Reboutsika and the singer Elli Paspala. The success is so remarkable that Duarte returns to Greece in August of the following year to perform at the 1st Mediterranean Music Festival in Chios (Greece).
After being nominated for 3 consecutive years, in 2009 he was awarded the Mais Musica Prize by the Mais Alentejo Magazine, being the most voted by the readers of this magazine.
In 2008, Duarte composed a theme for the soundtrack of the film “Mistérios de Lisboa”, in a challenge launched by one of the great admirers of his work, the director José Fonseca e Costa.
With the release, in November 2009, of his second album “Aquelas Coisas da Gente”, Duarte intends to combine traditional fado with new sounds, considering that: “Fado is one of the most beautiful forms of art, but fado singers are not are and cannot be islands. They receive information and experience from all sides.” (cf. “Correio da Manhã, 1 October 2006). In this way Duarte takes as references not only the fadistas Carlos do Carmo, Camané and Amália, but also artists linked to other forms of Portuguese music such as Jorge Palma or Sérgio Godinho.
At the invitation of the filmmaker José Fonseca e Costa, he composed the theme that serves as the soundtrack to the film “Mistérios de Lisboa” that was presented in 2009, as well as his new album “Aquelas Coisas da Gente” from which the theme “Mistérios da Gente” was taken from. de Lisboa”, as the first single. Duarte presented his work on tour through Portugal, Africa, Asia and Europe.
In 2014 he started the project of his work “Sem Dor Nem Piedade”, published the following year. The album is released in May 2015 to great acclaim from critics and enthusiastic audiences. Performing among others at the Centro Cultural de Belém (CCB) in Lisbon, France, Spain, Poland etc.
“I am married to psychology but fado is my lover”
“…This confession by Duarte, the new fado star, echoes this ambivalence of the Portuguese soul, always in search of that nostalgia in which those who let themselves be enchanted by the sirens of the melancholy of absence sink. Nonetheless."
per Antonio Mafra
On the 20th of February 2016, Duarte edits the CD in France that he presents at Teatro das Abesses and then goes on tours in all regions of France, apart from his concerts in Portugal.
Considered by some as “the Prince of Melancholy” or as “the most contemporary of fadistas”, Duarte presents (or presents himself) “Só a Cantar”. In 2018, the new work is released, produced by João Gil, “Só a Cantar” is composed of eleven songs. The artistic orientation is by Aldina Duarte who contributes with her authentic and significant experience of working in the field of fado, pointing out which are the best traditional fado melodies that would serve Duarte's lyrics. In “Só a Cantar”, in addition to the original theme composed by José Mário Branco, five traditional fados, four unpublished songs by Duarte and a theme from the Cancioneiro Popular Alentejano are reinvented.
The recording of the greys, the counter-current attitude and the lack of importance given to the mainstream are factors that mark the path of the fado singer/singer and that confirm “Só a Cantar” as an object of its own space, in Duarte's artistic expression. This work was distributed in Portugal and France.
“Because doing it again is taking care of the content, without getting lost in the illusion of effects.”
On March 26, 2021, a new CD/Book work “No Lugar Delas” is released. “No Lugar Dela” is a combat disc to the malice of the days. Conceptual and based on an empathic exercise. The singing and telling of the place of a few women. A man's gaze on these places. Because being in her place is being in someone else's place. Because being in her place is not being her – the other. Believing that through this movement we can have lighter days. Just as if the remedy of our days is empathy. As if empathy was fundamental. With pre-production by José Mário Branco. With a musical background in fado trio and classical string quartet, we therefore tried the place of the other, or in this case, of others.
“We're not going to fool people and say it's a fado record just because we recorded three fados. It won't be a fado record, although it's a fado singer singing it.”
per José Mário Branco (July 2019)
In 2022, Duarte won the Carlos Paredes Prize in ex aequo with Sexteto Bernardo Moreira, an award given by the Vila Franca de Xira Council.
These days, 2024, Duarte has already recorded his new album entitled "Come more twenty 2004 - 2024". If “No Lugar Dela” was empathy, “Venham Mais Vinte” is vulnerability. A work of searching for beauty in vulnerability. This one will be out on Novenber 20th, stay tuned!
Photographs by Ricardo Reis
