Instrumentalist, composer, arranger and producer, Celso Fonseca was born in Rio de Janeiro and start to play its first chords when he was quite young, on an acoustic guitar borrowed from his uncle. He openly confesses that it was Baden Powells music that led him to play. At age 11 he already played his own guitar, which was a present from his father.
At age 19 after quit the journalist classes at the university, he decided to study music seriously and from then on it was a short step for him to take up the guitarrist carrer and join Gilberto Gils band.
Besides that, Celso Fonseca has played as a sideman and recorded with the greatest artists from Brazilian Music,such as: Milton Nascimento, Djavan, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Chico Buarque de Holanda, Marisa Monte, Bebel Gilberto, JooBosco, JorgeBenjor, ElzaSoares, AdrianaCalcanhotto, VirginiaRodrigues, Vinicius Cantuaria, among many others. He took more than twenty international tours in countless festivals in Europe, USA, Canada and Japan.
As a producer, the highligts are his works in albuns like Gils "O eterno Deus Mu dana", Gal Costas "Aquele frevo ax", the albuns "Sol Negro" and "Nos", of the singer from Bahia, Virginia Rodrigues, the two first albuns of singer Daude, the album "Lisboa/Rio" of the master instrumentalist from Portugal, Antnio Chainho, the album "Sabia" of japanese singer Chie and many others works on albuns of artists like Daniela Mercury, Clara Moreno, Paula Morelenbaum, Zeca Baleiro, Adriana Maciel, etc
In 1999 Celso won with Gil and band the Grammy Award of best World Music Album with the album "Quanta Live".
As a composer, he has written many songs recorded by Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento, Carlinhos Brown, Maria Bethania, Vinicius Cantuaria, Daude, Antnio Chainho, Nana Caymmi,etc
Celso has nine critically acclaimed solo albuns: "Minha cara" (1986), "O som do sim" (1993) and the trilogy made in duo with brazilian songwriter Ronaldo Bastos: Sorte (1994), Paradiso (1997) and Juventude / Slow motion Bossa Nova which has 3 times Latin Grammy nomination in 2002. His album "Natural" was released by the Belgium label Ziriguiboom / Crammed in 2003. In 2004 , the same label had released "Rive Gauche Rio " , included in a list of the 10 best records of 2004 ,according to "The Sunday Times " . In 2006 ,Dubas Musica had released a compilation called " Polaroides " ,with 3 bonus tracks. In 2007,"Feriado" has been released in Brasil only.
In 2004 he has been in a big US Tour starting at NY's Blue Note. Also he was the second brazilian artist to be on "Later with Jools" the Jools Holland show on BBC. Celso Fonseca has been touring the world with his band playing a lot of Concerts in Europe US and Japan.
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