“Being able to sing fado outside Portugal lends a special meaning to my art because it means sharing my people’s soul,” says Sara Correia. In the Elbphilharmonie Innerview, she talks about her role models, about the significance of Portugal’s famous fado tradition, and about her own roots, which she vows to never lose sight of.

Born with fado

“I never had to search for fado,” says the musician from Lisbon whose family boasts several fadistas. “You never heard anything else in my grandparents’ house.” Even as a young child she immersed herself in fado recordings and learned the lyrics, and at the age of 9, she stood for the first time on the stage of one of the in-venues for fado in the coastal neighbourhood of Marvila.

Just a few years later she won her first song contest, and now she is touring the world as one of the great voices of her country. For her latest album ‘Do Coração’ (From my heart) she teamed up with fado star Antonio Zambujo, who is an ardent fan of his young colleague: “I have always loved listening to her singing. Sara is good for our health.”

Home game in the port city

Sara made her début at the Elbphilharmonie in May 2023. “It’s almost a home game,” she said at the time, “because Hamburg, like Lisbon, is a port city, full of songs from across the world which meet there just like the Tejo and the Atlantic ocean.”

And indeed, the singer sang herself right into the hearts of the Hamburgers. With her warm and powerful voice she tells of pain and mourning, of love and yearning – as always with the profoundly melancholy undercurrent so typical of fado.