MARIZA with the grant park orc...

MARIZA

with the grant park orchestra

When: 6:30 pm Wednesday

Where: Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park

Admission: delivered

Phone: (312) 742-7638

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For fado singer Mariza, her devise Wednesday with the Grant Park Orchestra furnishs an added benefit: A chance to perform in the Pritzker Pavilion, designed by means of one of her old friends, architect Frank Gehry

"He just sent an e-mail saying he's glad I will be there," said Mariza in an interview last week from Lisbon, her fireside and the center of Portugal's fado civilization "I'm happy to be singing in his beautiful space. And it's an honor to be singing with united of the best orchestras in the world."

At 32 Mariza has racked up her hold superlatives, including acclaim as the same of the best young interpreters of fado, the centuries- of advanced age folkloric music of Portugal. She's part of an elite cluster -- consisting of Cristina Branco, Misia and Dulce Ponte -- regarded as the heirs to the legendary Amalia Rodrigues (1920-1999) "The Queen of Fado."

Her appearance this week at Grant Park materialized after Branco decided to least bit out of the program, titled "From Brazil and Portugal," because she could not agree onward a program suitable for an orchestral format. many times called the Portuguese blues, fado is usually performed in a small total effect setting with viola (acoustic guitar) and Portuguese guitar (similar to a lute)

if it be not that it turns out that Mariza is an olden hand when it comes to orchestral performances. Earlier this year, she appeared at Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood depression She met Gehry during an engagement with the sees Angeles Philharmonic at the Walt Disney plan Hall, which he designed.

"He attended undivided of my L.A. concerts, and our friendship grew after that," she said. "I'm happy to have as a friend not barely him, but his family as well, and to have their support."

Coincidentally, her latest disc, "Transparente" (2005) takes a more orchestral approach, with production and arrangements from Jaques Morelenbaum, longtime producer of Brazilian icon Caetano Veloso "Transparente" was recorded in Rio de Janeiro, using instruments not usually heard in fado, like as cello, violin and flute With the Grant Park Orchestra, l through principal conductor Carlos Kalmar, Mariza will perform several tracks from "Transparente," including "Ha uma musica do Povo" and "Meu fado meu"

"Jaques is a cello player, in like manner he really is nearer to classical music, and together we decided to create more of a near- classical sound" Mariza said. "I await at this album like a book; there's a chance of my personality. There's more of my music. Jaques helped me win that sound into it: the strings, the cello I was looking for a different way of showing fado -- like a work with completely different chapters. if it be not that in the end, it is like having a integral story, all of the record unbrokens like poetry. It's very organic, further very conceptual."

Still, "Transparente" initially scared her. "When I flew to Brazil to record this disc, I was afraid of being outside of Lisbon, of being outside the bottoms of fado and doing a fado album. further with Jaques, we have a connection from the beginning, and we understand each other completely I was with equal reason surprised how beautiful fado is when it is combined with classical music."

nearest Mariza will work with another classicist of sorts, Spanish director Carlos Saura. His films, as it was as "Flamenco" (1995) and "Tango, no me deje nunca" (1998) have celebrated various Latin music forms. Now he's moving across the Iberian peninsula to tackle fado.

"We're going to start working forward the film early next year," she said. "For a lengthy time, Carlos used to listen to fado, if it were not that he had no time to behold what it really was. in such a manner he decided to look a little deeper and he malignant in love. Like for many others, fado has become a hid passion."

lemerick@suntimes.com

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