Sonia Shirsat is a household name in Goa, her singing the Fado, the Portuguese semi-classical music form is well known across the world. She has put Goa on the world map and her story is what dreams are made of.

Ahead of her performance at the Royal Opera House as part of Festa de Goa in September 2024, in an email interview Sonia Shirsat shares her story on how she got into music, her accidental connection with Fado, her musical journey and by conducting fado workshops hopes to do everything she can to see more professional fado singers in Goa, an art form that has lived in Goa for over a 100 years.

Sonia, you are undoubtedly the Queen of Fado. To someone who has never heard of fado, can you throw some light on this form of music and what it really is?

Fado is a semi-classical Western genre of music that emerged in Lisbon, Portugal in the early 1800s. This is also catagorised as an urban folk song because it comes from the folk - folk of the city. It is charaterised by melancholy, soulful music. There is a lot of pain in the poetry, singing and the voice. Therefore, many times, it is considered a sad form of music. There are also quite a few up-tempo, cute, funny, naughty fado songs. This is an art form that has been recognised by UNESCO in 2011 as an intangible heritage of humanity. Therefore, it has received recognition and has a lot of documentaries and films made on it. Fado is traditionally performed in a very cozy small place in a casa de fado.

So what is casa de fado?

Casa de fado is a small place, for just about 20 or 30 people. Fado is usually sung in the evenings and into the late night. It is a very serious art form so therefore there is pin drop silence when the fadista starts singing. Usually there are 4-5 fados that are sung. Then there is a break so that people can move in and out, to get a drink, have a smoke, and talk to other people. Then the lights are dimmed and the next singer will come and sing a few more songs. This is the pattern of a casa de fado. They don’t have a huge food menu. They offer snacks, tea, coffee, soup at times. So that is the ambience of a casa de fado.

Tell us your formative years as a child growing up in Ponda, Goa?

Growing up in Ponda was wonderful. My father being one of the leading doctors of the town, I had a very protected childhood. More than half the town were my dad’s patients so everybody was very protective. My parents were very active in Rotary and other social organizations, so there was lots of community work that we would take up. There would be many Rotarians who would visit from all around the world so there was lots of learning about different cultures and learning about different countries that happened in my childhood. We travelled quite a bit in Goa and outside Goa, within the Rotary district as part of the Rotary events. I studied in a co-ed convent school so we never really grew up with gender differences. Our friend circle is a wonderful mix and we are still close friends to this date.

Academically, what have you done and what were you initially wanting to do before you took up music?

I did my schooling, and then junior college and graduation in Commerce in Ponda after which I did my Bachelors in Law and my LLM in Panjim. I taught law for 4 years in a law college. Music was always a preference, but my parents always advised me to complete my studies first and then look into music. And that’s exactly what happened. When I was doing my LLB, I was approached by the band, Status 4, and that’s how my music career started in 2002. Fado happened a couple of years later. So by the time it was 2011, it was clear that my career was more into music than into law or academics. So I plunged completely into music by that time.

Do you remember the first time you stood on stage and sang? How old were you?

I think I was 8 years old. It was for sarvajanik ganpati mandap. You have these big Lord Ganesh idols which are celebrated for Ganesh Chaturthi. Next to the idol, there is a stage for cultural activities. There was an orchestra/band that was playing. Somebody had heard me sing somewhere and they put in a word for me, so I landed on that stage to sing. I sang Papa Kehte Hain from ‘Qayamat se Qayamat tak’. So these are very fond memories because I was a kid performing. It was very enjoyable.

Was music a part of your family?

In my family, we have never had any musician as such. Singing was a hobby for both my parents, especially for my mother. I heard her singing right through my childhood and we would sing simple songs together while cooking in the kitchen, doing work together. My dad loved music. His day started with music and ended with music. So music was a very important part of both my parents lives and both of them liked to sing. My mother was a very good singer and she could sing English, Hindi, Marathi, Konkani, Portuguese, without taking any music education. My mother’s mother also really liked music and she used to copy lyrics of fado music that was being played on the radio and have music books. As far as having a career in music, I think I am the first.

How did you take interest in Fado in particular?

It happened by accident. Right through my school and college years, I used to compete in singing competitions and usually win them, whether it was in English, Hindi or Konkani. And then there was a French singing competition in Goa organised by Alliance Francaise. I was in the top 5 in the country and sent to France. Subsequently, I read a Portuguese singing competition announcement in the newspapers. I participated in this competition in 2002 and won it. I sang a ballad in Portuguese, not a fado. Subsequently, organisers of this singing competition were having a Portuguese guitar workshop where they had invited one of the most famous Portuguese guitarists, António Chaínho, to come to Goa to conduct classes. At the end of the workshop, there was a performance by the teacher and his new guitar students. He felt that the performance required some vocals. Since I had just won the competition last year, they asked me to prepare a fado and come, which I had never done before. So I had to put in an effort and learn a fado for that concert and I sang it. After the concert, the guitarist called me aside and said that I had a voice suited for the fado. He also offered to help. So when somebody of that calibre said that my voice is for the fado, it made more sense to me. Since then, I concentrated on the fado.

You travelled to Portugal, for a Fundacao Oriente scholarship in 2006. Please share how this happened and what you learnt there.

In 2006 I was granted a scholarship by Fundacoa Oriente. This was my third attempt. Twice I had applied and hadn’t been given the scholarship, with the reason being, in Portugal itself, there was no institution that teaches you to sing the fado. There are institutions that teach you the guitar and music in general, but fado itself did not have a school or a teacher that could have accepted me as a student and give me a scholarship. Finally, the third time, António Chaínho and a few others vouched for conducting classes for me. By that time, I had performed fado through Fundacao Oriente in Bangalore and in other places. So all that footage and documentation was submitted in my third application. That is how I got the scholarship. I went to Portugal for 2 months. It was very nice because I was learning an art form, staying across the world, listening to CDs, going into the circles where fado is performed every night and learning from singers and musicians there made a big difference in the understanding of that art form. It was a very important step in my learning of the fado.

In October 2008, you also held your debut concert in Lisbon, Mundo Fado. Tell us something about it.

In 2008, I was invited to Delhi and Bangalore twice to perform fado. And it dawned upon me that I needed to grow in fado to continue this journey. I could not sit in Goa and expect to grow as far as fado is concerned. So I took a decision by myself to go to Lisbon for two months and learn, absorb, listen, record, whatever I could do about fado then. And that's how I landed in Portugal in 2008 for two months. I had written to the president of Fundacao Oriente that I would be in Portugal and it would be an honor to perform for him as an act of gratitude because Fundacao Oriente has been very supportive in my journey with the fado. However, that letter was handed over to the cultural chief in Lisbon. I was invited for a meeting and invited to have a concert in an auditorium that they have in the museum there. And that was going to be my very first solo concert of my life and for it to be a fado concert and that in Portugal, which is the land of fado, it was quite a big challenge. So I had about a month to prepare for that concert. So I gathered musicians and guest artists, a little bit of Goan music from the Goan association there Casa de Goa, and it was a beautiful concert called Mundo Fado which happened on the 10th of October 2008. Believe it or not it was a houseful concert. The tickets were sold out three days in advance. I was really happy, because I didn't expect so many people to be interested in listening to a foreigner coming and singing their music, because Portugal is very possessive about their fado. The people in the fado world are very, very possessive of it. It's something that they hold very close to their heart and they think that it's only theirs, traditionally, which is, I mean, there's nothing wrong. They hold it with pride. I wasn't sure how it was going to be accepted but it went full house. There were full page newspaper articles on two national newspapers Diário de Notícias and Público and it was really beautifully covered. I received a lot of appreciation and met a lot of people in the fado world through that concert.

What are the challenges you faced learning Fado? 

There were quite a few challenges actually. First and foremost, fado was in Portuguese and at that time when I started I couldn't speak Portuguese. I could understand a little bit of Portuguese because it was spoken on my mother's side of the family, but knowing a language to the extent of general parlance and knowing a language to understand poetry and literature are two different things. So a lot of the lyrics I wouldn't understand, there were words which I had never heard in my life and as it is I couldn't speak the language. So when I had to learn a fado, I had to put a lot of effort so that I wouldn't grammatically make mistakes. I wouldn't phonetically make mistakes of pronunciation and then of course I had to put in the expression because fado is a very emotion based singing art form. So it was very challenging just to learn and as I told you there is no teacher, there is no guru, there is no school, there is no academy that will teach you the fado. So you have to just observe, listen, feel and sing. So yes, there were lots of challenges, because if I had to learn anything about fado, I had to read books or I had to go all the way to Portugal. And believe it or not, I went non-stop every year to Portugal, sometimes for the performances, sometimes on my own, just to be able to learn more about the fado.

Did you attend any fado performances while in Portugal?

I would attend whatever I could, every night I used to go out to the places where life fado used to happen, again I wouldn't speak the language, half of the musicians couldn't communicate with me, but then I tried to master the language, today I can decently speak Portuguese so it's easier for me to communicate with the musicians and to gather information. Every year I used to return to Portugal with a list of questions and ask the learned ones all my queries and that's how I increased my knowledge about fado, because there wasn't one place where I could get all that information. So bits and pieces here and there, I gathered and put it all together. So lots of challenges and especially when you don't have a path, there was nobody before this who went from Goa out there, learned the fado and came back and started performing and publicizing and promoting the fado.  So there was no path to follow, there was nobody to give me tips and tell me where to go or where not to go, unless I reached Portugal and met with people from there. So it was quite challenging, but because I love this form of music and I received a very warm welcome into that fraternity. It felt nice to put in all that effort and learn as much as I could.

Are there many other artists who have performed Fado?

You have different artists that have performed the fado from national to international stages. Few of the main names would be Amália Rodrigues (1920-1999) who took Fado across the globe. Apart from Amália, there were other contemporaries and seniors like Alfred Marceneiro, Maria Teresa de Noronha, and the new generation of fadistas that came at that turn of the century in this millennium. So you have Marisa, Ana Moura, Carminho, Camané, and many others.

Are there many people in Goa or around who sing fado?

Professionally singing the fado, there are very few. I can count them on my hand. As I said, there are no professional platforms for the fado to be sung. Singing fado as a hobby, there are many in Goa from the previous generations. They sang it casually at family gatherings or small performances. But professionally, I don’t think there is anyone. But some of our singers from Goa who have won the Portuguese singing competitions in Goa and then have gotten into fado and some of our students, are doing a great job with fado. We deserve to put in extra effort and bring it as one of our mainstream music forms of the state.

From what I understand, there are certain rules one needs to follow to sing Fado. Can you tell us about this?

There are some general rules. First and foremost, the most important rule is silence. The audience is expected to maintain pin drop silence when someone sings a fado. This is the most basic rule. Second, when there is a performance going on in a casa de fado and the singer is singing a set of three or more fados, no one moves during that time. If you are sitting or standing, you remain in that position until the end of the performance. You can’t walk in front of the singer at any point of time. The singer will probably sing with their eyes closed, maybe in front of the musicians or behind the musicians, depending on the place and how much space there is. Traditionally fado singers and musicians used to be formally dressed. But today, you find a lot of casual outfits, especially during summertime. Now singers and musicians are more casually dressed because of the weather and because of course times have changed. One general rule was also that a fado singer would wear a triangular shawl over their shoulders and that would be a part of her outfit. Now a lot of singers have stopped wearing the shawls, so you don’t find traditionally shawl-clad fadistas everywhere. So these are some of the general rules. As far as fado music rules are concerned, in traditional fado, there are many rules which is what we cater to and teach our students when we do the course on fado. There is how you write fado, lyrics, structure, and music but that is in depth.

You also hold workshops to train people to learn Fado. Can you share something about it.

In the end of 2016, we started a project called Fado de Goa. Through that we have taught over 300 students about the fado and to sing the fado. These classes were conducted in different batches all over Goa and in COVID, smaller courses and batches were conducted online. It was an attempt to promote, preserve and popularise the fado. Today, some of our students have practiced and reached a professional level. 3 of them this year have performed in New Delhi and some also performed for the Zohra Segal Art Festival in Delhi. They have also performed at the Monte music festival in Goa. They have performed at venues within Goa as well.

What does the course consist of?

It was a subject that I had to put together, mainly the syllabus. We were catering to students who were non-Portuguese speaking. Students who were from a country that was far away from the land of fado. So I had to design the syllabus in such a way that they understand things about the fado and also learn how to sing the fado. So there is a lot of the theory that we teach them - history, structure, rules, instruments, main artists, casa de fado, main areas of fado, types and styles of fado, and lots more. All these topics are covered in the course. They also learn to sing the fado. They learn to sing the fado coimbre, lisboa, traditional fado, fado cançao so that they understand the difference, so that in the future when a fado is thrown to them, they can decipher what type of fado it is. This is the course that we used to teach since 2016 and we hope to have some more batches now. We had stopped prior COVID. I would like to start a full course all over again. We conducted our classes not only at Fado de Goa but University of Goa invited me to conduct classes in the university. We had 2 batches for the last 2 academic years. I have also taught Fado at IIT Kharagpur. It was part of the International Convention of SPIC MACAY there. We had a batch of students from different parts of India, 1 student from Pakistan, 2-3 from Rajasthan, some from South India, a lady from Gujarat. So it was a nice mix of students and they did pretty well. So the effort is to get fado popularised in India because it is a beautiful art form. I accept students who don’t know Portuguese or music, it doesn’t matter. If you like the art form and you think you have the talent and you do have the talent, we will be more than happy to train you to sing the fado.

Do you feel there is enough being done for Fado in Goa and other places? If not, then what do you think needs to be done to revive this tradition?

We have just started. Nothing before that was done. Fado was just sung within families. Fado in Goa, was very small and no one knew about it. We are trying to bring it into the mainstream and to the masses. We are trying to bring it to people who don’t speak the language because prior to this, it was only sung by people who knew Portuguese. Some of our students can sing fado on and I would love all my students to sing on a professional platform. We need more people to play the Portuguese guitar and the violas de fado. We need more music and places where fado can be performed. I am very happy that fado music was showcased at the Royal Opera House as part of the Goa Festival. I performed fado at NCPA and Blue Frog in the past. I’m sure there is a big audience in Mumbai that would love fado, but doesn’t know it exists in Goa. There is a lot of scope for this art form. There are many that have travelled to Portugal to listen to fado live and I’m sure would love to hear fado in India as well and relive those memories by attending a fado performance in India. I would like to go to educational institutions and cultural centers to conduct these workshops. To learn the fado you don’t need to know Portuguese or music. If you have a talent for the art form or like the art form, we have many students who have learnt the art form in this way.

You sing on stage, in private concerts and in hotels. Can you explain the difference in each experience? 

Each venue and type of performance is very different. It’s different when you have a home concert, an auditorium concert. The way of structuring the concerts and other elements like the lights, sounds, stage set-up, flow of the performance, elements on stage vary. Everything changes. A concert, stage performance, restaurant performance like a casa de fado, is also very different.  There’s amplification in some concerts and there isn’t in some.

Are there many types of Fado?

As far as types of fado are concerned, basically, there are two styles: one from the city of Lisbon and one from the city of Coimbra. If you talk about types of fado in the Lisbon style of fado, there are different types, Fado Menor, Fado Corrido and Fado Mouraria. So these three types branch out into many others, so traditional fado from Lisbon has different names and different types as they branch out of these 3 main forms. Apart from traditional fado, there is another style fado cançao, which is a song-like fado and there is modern fado.

You also have a couple of music albums too.

There are 2 albums, ‘Saudades de Fado’ - 1 (2010) and 2 (2016). Both these albums were recorded in Lisbon with musicians from there. I also did two other albums, one entirely of Konkani songs called ‘Uyddas’ which means ‘memories’ and the other ‘Melodious Goa’ consisting of folk forms from Goa – dulpod, mando, deknni with 4 Portuguese songs that are loved in Goa. I have also sung in ‘LisGoa’ an album with António Chaínho.

Has anybody cried listening to your fado?

Yes, quite a few times. Very recently I was performing at a Portuguese casa de fado in New York. There was only one couple that was Portuguese and both were in tears. Fado is an art form that moves you to tears. If it doesn’t, there is something wrong in the performance.

Lorna is known as the Nightingale of Goa. Did she inspire you to take up fado as a career?

Lorna is an inspiration to all of us, but she never sang fado. She sings in Konkani. Fado is in Portuguese, not in Konkani. Fado is a semi classical form of music. As far as a singer, yes, she is a huge inspiration. I am a big fan of hers. I had the privilege of singing with her on stage and whenever I can, I try to visit and meet her. Her career has influenced nearly 4 generations of people from Goa. Lorna cannot be matched when it comes to her career. For me, she is the ultimate in Goa.

What are your future plans for fado and promoting this music?

To continue with my fado classes, one batch a year so we can popularize as well as identify voices who can take the fado ahead. I will then work with the students one-on-one, which I have been doing for the last 8 years. I would like to polish them so that they are capable of professionally performing this art form.

Interviewed by Verus Ferreira

Photos: Verus Ferreira