Said to be the first woman to play the Portuguese guitar professionally in fado, Marta Pereira da Costa will debut in Goa in concert with sitarist Ustad Chhote Rahimat Khan today
VINIKA VISWAMBHARAN | NT BUZZ
“When I started performing in fado houses, I got to know that there were no women playing the Portuguese guitar,” recalls Lisbon-born musician Marta Pereira da Costa. What began as a fascination with the instrument would eventually see her become the first woman to play it professionally in fado, opening a new chapter in its centuries-old tradition.
Rather than dwell on the significance of being a woman in a male-dominated tradition, Costa focused on learning. “I tried to learn as much as I could,” she says.
More than a decade after choosing music full-time, Costa is now using the instrument as a voice in its own right, as she will bring that approach to Goa on September 24, when she will perform at Ravindra Bhavan, Margao, alongside sitarist Ustad Chhote
Rahimat Khan.
The concert, organised by Communicare Trust with the Consulate General of Portugal in Goa and Camões – Centro de Língua Portuguesa, will bring together Portuguese fado and Indian classical music, with Costa also performing alongside João José Pita Junior on seven-string guitar and Carlos Miguel Antunes on percussion.
From an early age, music was part of Costa’s life. “I used to play the piano since I was four and wanted to be a pianist initially,” she says. It was her father who introduced her to the Portuguese guitar, an encounter that soon changed the course of her musical journey. “I fell in love with its sound and with the possibilities to interpret it,” she says. At the time, she was studying civil engineering and worked in the field before eventually deciding to put everything aside and devote herself entirely to music in 2012.
Costa mentions that her early years were rooted firmly in fado. She spent time performing in fado houses, where musicians learn by listening, watching and playing alongside experienced performers. “I was so thirsty for learning everything I could,” she says, recalling the many fado singers and Portuguese guitar players she encountered. Among those who influenced her were Carlos Gonçalves, José Pontes Rocha, Mário Pacheco, and the Parreira family.
That immersion in tradition eventually led her towards a different question: what else could the Portuguese guitar say beyond its traditional role of accompanying a singer. “I think the Portuguese guitar is a soul by itself. And it can shine and say something without words too,” she says.
Her instrumental work has since allowed her to explore jazz, Cape Verdean morna, Brazilian choro and other musical influences while retaining the character of the Portuguese guitar. “What I like is to create bridges with the sonorities and the instruments, to make musical experiments,” she says. “The personality of the Portuguese guitar is so strong that its identity of the sound always captures the Portuguese heritage well.”
That idea of musical exchange will be central to her performance in Margao. For Costa and Khan, who have not yet met in person, the concert is less about presenting a finished fusion than discovering what can happen when two musicians meet. Their collaboration so far has taken place through messages and shared audio recordings, with each musician challenging the other to enter the other’s musical language. “I challenged Chhote to play a traditional fado on the sitar,” says Costa. “He challenged me to play a raga on the Portuguese guitar. Let’s see how we can meet in the middle with both our melodies.”
The upcoming joint performance will leave room for spontaneity too. “It will be a chat and a bit of improvisation, of course,” she says. “He’ll bring his phrasing, I’ll bring mine. It will be exciting.”
According to Costa, the meeting of the two instruments is also an opportunity to connect two musical traditions without attempting to make them identical. “Both instruments express feelings. Both have their own melodies, their own languages,” she says. “We try to connect through music that is universal, since our feelings are universal as well.”
While this is Costa’s first visit to Goa, she hopes it will not be her last. “I want to learn more about the sitar and about the music here,” she notes. “I hope to come back and develop beautiful projects and build a bridge between the two traditions.”
For the Goan audience, Costa promises more than a concert. “They should be ready for a voyage through Portugal and India. It will be a journey of feelings.”
The concert is also a fundraiser for Dona Paula-based Communicare Trust’s community programmes, as performing for a cause adds another meaning to the evening for Costa. “We are so blessed in what we do, and we have to put our gifts in the service,”
she says.
Communicare Trust founder Nalini Elvino de Sousa hopes the concert will be more than a one-off cultural exchange. “This is the first time we are bringing a Portuguese musician to support an NGO,” she says, adding that she hopes it can lead to similar collaborations in the future, with Portuguese musicians supporting different organisations in Goa.
