The beginning of Flor-de-Lis is closely related to the participation of Pedro Marques as percussionist in the “Adufe project”, originally created by Jose Salgueiro as a spectacle for the Expo-98 aimed to showcase the traditional Portuguese instruments. The success of the project and several national and international performances between 1999 and 2000 started the willingness of Pedro Marques to explore all the richness of Portuguese music, combining it with world music.
The project begins to take shape in 2001 with the participation of several musicians in recording sessions, including Paulo Pereira, who has remained in the band since it’s early days. Songs of the band were naturally created in a process involving various approaches and instruments. The band now performs not only the original compositions of Pedro Marques and Daniela Varela, but also songs of Eugenio de Andrade, Jose Regio, Ary dos Santos, David Mourao-Ferreira, Maria Jose de Castro.
The sound of the band is based on Portuguese folk music, the folklore of fado, but also merging it with sounds from other continents. Members of the band are Pedro Marques on percussion (Cajon, darbuka, timpani, conga, bongo, drums), Jose Camacho (Portuguese guitar and guitar), Jorge Marques (guitar and cavaquinho), Paulo Pereira (flute, soprano sax and tenor sax), Rolando Amaral (bass), Ana Sofia Campea (accordion), and lead singer - Daniela Varela.
Daniela started singing in the early age and at the age of 8 already took part in “Young singers of Lisbon” of Ana Faria, and from 10 years was performing in Filipe La Feria’s “Jasmine and the Dream of Cinema” and “Godspell “. After a brief break, when she has discovered the interest in painting and illustration, she returned to singing and in 2008 has joined Flor-de-Lis. |
