Biography
Sonia Bettencourt sings in English, French, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish, and is fluent in the 3 first languages mentioned. She has also sung in German and Latin in the several choirs she belonged to as a child and teenager. Including “Coro de Santo Amáro de Oeiras” known as one of the best choirs in Portugal.
Born to a musically oriented family, she began singing and dancing at a very young age, having family and friends as her audience. All through her teenage years, she participated in Song Festivals, winning first prizes due to her solid interpretation. She had singing (vocal technique) lessons for a brief period when she thought about being a Lyrical singer but she decided it wasn't the type of music she wanted to do in her life, even though, she was very praised as a Soprano. Even though she thinks she has her own style, when singing, she acknowledges the influences of her family as well as classical and sacred music and the singer Amália Rodrigues (her favorite Fado singer and biggest reference in that style of music). March 2014 is the start of a surprising and great new project, Sonia always had the dream of sing fado. When she was invited by Liliana DeSousa to perform among other fado artists, she was thrilled. Liliana DeSousa is one of the biggest promoters of fado that we have in USA and gave Sonia the chance to do what she loves the most. That night Sonia performed with two great guitar players, Viriato Ferreira and Manuel Leite and the bond with fado have just started. Three years later, after performing all over the USA, she decides to write her own original fado and working with Loic da Silva, they create the single" Fado Meu". Her new project is born and she finally releases her first Fado CD in 2018 with the same title "Fado Meu". On April of 2018, her original fado (Fado Meu) wins the prize of "BEST FADO PERFORMANCE 2018) at the IPMA (International Portuguese Music Awards). |