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SILVANA MALTABiographySilvana Malta's musical career began in Minas Gerais in the south-eastern Brazil close to Rio and São Paulo. Her earliest influences came from her musical family, and from her mother in particular. Her childhood home was full of instruments, but of the seven children, Silvana alone broke away from the middleclass standards to pursue a career in music. Although she has no formal musical education, Silvana learned the guitar at an early age by copying her older sisters, and comments that she has always sung. Her family would have liked her to seek another road in life, but her desire to express herself through music was irrepressible."I received my musical education at concerts and cafés and through recordings. My mother didn't want me to become a musician. I think she had heard too many stories about sex, drugs and rock'roll!"Silvana began performing publicly with her sisters when she was 17. They sang at weddings, private parties, in small caf..s, and as backing vocalists at recording sessions. Their repertoire was based on the popular Brazilian music of the day. When Silvana started her first band at 21, she soon gained a local reputation playing caf..s and concerts at small theatre venues. Silvana began hanging out with the musicians and composers based around the guitarist Toninho Horta and Milton Nascimento. "To this day I have no idea how I got the courage - and a tune that starts out with an improvisation. And I was the one who had to improvise."In 1987 her career reached a turning point, when she met the master Hermeto Pascoal incidentally at one of his concerts. On impulse, he invited Silvana on stage to sing with the band. She had never met him or his musicians before and declined the offer, but Hermeto persisted, taunting her by asking if she wasn't a real musician - couldn't she vouch for her music? After the break she went on stage. The following day she was invited to join them for another concert, and the day after that she recorded with them. Henceforth Silvana became Pascoal's vocalist at festivals and large concerts all over Brazil, while also performing with Toninho Horta's popular group."Hermeto Pascoal was extremely important in my life. It was as if everything else lost its meaning subsequently. It was impossible to imagine music after that."Toninho Horta and Hermeto Pascoal are equally fascinating personalities, each in his own right. Hermeto is the eclectic experimenter, while Toninho is sophisticated and jazzy. Two opposite poles in Brazilian music, they both stand for the highest quality. These two opposites made a deep impression on Silvana over the following years. At this time her life was intense with dramatic musical development, lots of work, and a steady focus on her as a vocalist. She felt torn between two charismatic musical personalities and the rest of the world of music."I was accustomed to hard work, recording studios and concerts, but in New York the circles evolved around small gigs in small restaurants. People suggested that I become more aggressive - all that mattered was making it, the music was secondary."Hermeto and Toninho both encouraged Silvana to find her own artistic footing, and not to keep performing with their own or other bands indefinitely. She decided to follow their advice. In a burst of travel fever and longing for new challenges and impressions, she moved to New York, and stayed there for the next four years. She earned a living for her daughter and herself as a vocalist in different constellations performing mainly stereotypical Brazilian music. She also started a group of her own, which died quickly, quietly, and with no taste of commercial success. This was not the life Silvana had dreamed of. Her goals reached higher."The audiences in Brazil are critical. No matter how wonderful or technically superior you sing, they are unbending if you don't have anything to say - they will tell you straight off, if its no good."Silvana Malta married a Dane and continued her career in Denmark, which was fairly virgin ground for Brazilian music. In her new home Silvana had to start from the bottom, but the Danish environment allowed her to follow her own artistic inclinations, resulting in five CDs with her own band, one as featured soloist with the world famous Danish Radio Big Band, and a collaboration with the Danish pianist and arranger Frans Bak."Music is a universal language. It knows no national borders if it is genuine."All through her Danish years, Silvana Malta has led her own band consisting of the best interpreters of Brazilian music in this part of the world. She tours all over Europe, and has reached full circle: Silvana now leads a band featuring some of the Brazilian musicians she worked for in her youth in Brazil. Toninho Horta and percussionist Airto Moreira joined her on her last release CEU DE BRASILIA. The album has received rave reviews from the Danish and international critics."Bossa Nova can be compared to making love. Once you start off, everything is easy - instinctively you know what to do. You must listen to each other and pay attention to which direction the other musicians chose. The art is to swing quietly."The artist Silvana Malta cuts to the bone. A vocalist must be able to interpret a song in a way that transcends the lyrics. The music may be happy, extroverted or melancholy, but for Silvana emotional contact with the lyrics as well as the music is a necessity. All or nothing - otherwise who cares? Silvana could not sing on cruise control even if she tried. Genuine music is her mantra.