Throughout her career, Carla Pires has accomplished to entertain audiences in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, with hundreds of concerts around the world. She has performed in prestigious venues such as Osaka Symphony Hall, Okayama Symphony Hall, Hiroshima Bunka Gakuen Hall, Kobe International House, Nakano Sun Plaza-Tokyo (Japan), Graz Opera (Austria), Vlaamse Opera Gent, Södra Teatern (Stockholm), Concertgbow, De La Mar Theater, Schowburg Roterdamse, Rasa (Netherlands), Cirque d’Hiver and Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Teatro Solís (Montevideo), Festival de Musique Baroque d’Ambronay, Sommarscen Festival (Malmo) and many others.
Carla Pires began her singing career in 1993, participating in several musical projects, recording soundtracks and and playing roles as an actress for TV series in Portugal.
In 1996 she won the 1st prize at the Thessaloniki Festival (Greece), organised by the Societies of Authors in Europe on behalf of Portugal, with the theme “Canção do Vento e da Terra”, which was included on her second album: Rota das Paixões.
In 2002, , the year in which fado began to take over her main musical aspirations, she recorded the CD O Fado em Concerto with the classic Quinteto Amália, and from September 2002 to July 2005 she played the role of “young Amália” in the biggest musical ever produced in Portugal – the musical “Amalia”.
Carla Pires statement as Fado singer happens in 2004, when she joined the Portuguese artist agency and label Ocarina Music. This marked the beginning of her solo career. It was also the year in which she recorded her first solo studio album for Ocarina, Ilha do meu Fado. Some of the tracks on this CD have been included in several national and international collections.
In 2005, she was invited to represent Portugal at the World Expo in Japan, where she gave three concerts at the Oharu Auditorium on the occasion of PORTUGAL NATIONAL DAY AT EXPO 2005 AICHI, 24th MAY.
International concerts have been a constant in her career, highlighted by the opening concert of one of the largest festivals in Europe – Flanders International Festival, at the Ghent Opera, on 18 September 2010 and the showcase at Babel Med Music, Marseille (30 March 2012), the second largest world music fair in Europe.
Pires’ second album, Rota das Paixões, was released internationally, on the World Village/Harmonia Mundi label in May 2012.
The year 2014 began with a new experience. At the invitation of the renowned Portuguese choreographer Vasco Wellenkamp, Carla Pires embarks on a 42-date tour of the Netherlands with the performance Fado, Ritual e Sombras (Fado, Ritual and Shadows), a co-production with dancers from the Portuguese National Contemporary Ballet and the International Danstheater (Amsterdam) about Fado, with live music performed by the singer. This show won the Audience Dance Award 2014.
Parallel she has presented her solo concert -Rota das Paixões- in France, Switzerland, Spain, Austria, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Angola.
In 2015 [March (14, 18, 25) and April (10, 12, 17, 18, 23, 26)] – Carla Pires performed at Graz Opera in the piece “Malambo” which integrates the contemporary dance project “Fado, Ritual & Shadows”, with a new choreography by Vasco Wellencamp for the Oper Graz Tanzkompanie. The singer was accompanied by her three fado musicians and by the Grazer Philharmoniche Orchester.
Pires’ third solo album Aqui was released in 2016. Following the release of the album, 2017 saw the start of the “Aqui World Tour”, with concerts in France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Poland, the United Kingdom and a 14-concert tour of Japan, between 28 October and 14 November, at the best venues of the main cities: Kasaoka Civic Hall, Okayama Symphony Hall, Arkas Sasebo, Hiroshima Bunka Gakuen Hbg Hall, Higashi Kurara Hall, Konosu City Cultural Center, Izumo-Shi Shimin Kaikan, Kobe International House, Osaka Symphony Hall (2 concerts), Nara-Ken Bunka Kaikan, Wakayama Municipal Auditorium, Joyo City Cultural Center and Nakano Sun Plaza Hall (Tokyo).
Cartografado, Pires’ fourth studio album , released at the end of April 2020, reveals the singer’s ability to make fado even more world-wise but also even more fado, singing her own way. The “Cartografado World Tour” began in May 2021 with concerts in Portugal, Spain, France, Czech Republic, Romania, and a tour of Austria with 10 concerts (Sept./Oct.2022) and ended on 29 November 2023 at the Teatro de la Audiencia in Soria (Spain).
20 years after joining Ocarina Music, Carla Pires celebrates this milestone with the release of her fifth career-spanning album VaiVem in June 2024, followed by the ‘20th Anniversary Tour’.
§“Carla Pires has produced the most solid record of her discography. While clearly setting her roots in fado she includes bits of flamenco on ‘Em Frente ao Muro’, traditional percussive sounds on ‘Vida Nova’, samba on ‘Cartografado’ and a chamber-like approach to fado on ‘O Tempo e a Vida’. All of these are highlights on a record where Pires proves she has beautifully matured as a fadista. When we listen to the title-track or ‘Sei de Um Silêncio’ she comes across as a fully confident and sharp singer.”
Gonçalo Frota | SONGLINES Magazine, #158 – 14/05/2021
§“For her fourth and superb album, this great Portuguese singer, whose luminous voice goes straight to the heart, takes us on a long journey that is as rural as it is urban, as traditional as it is modern”.
François Saddi, 5Planètes(FR) – www.5planetes.com (06/05/2021)
§“We discovered Carla Pires in 2012 and were won over by her way of interpreting fado, with gentleness and without tragedy, like a gentle ballad that feels good. Now she is back, true to herself, with an album in which the artist magnifies the fado, while appropriating it in a very personal way.”
Nadia Khouri-Dagher – MUZZIKA – https://musiques-du-monde.com (07/04/2021)
§ “Carla Pires is one of the most outstanding fado talents of this century. Her songs are often more acoustic than those of her more progressive competitors. As a result, Pires emphasizes her vocals and it soon becomes clear that she has one of the most beautiful, emotionally most penetrating voices in contemporary fado.”
Cees Bronsveld in the Dutch music magazine Heaven #4 /July-August 2020
§ “CARTOGRAFADO: when Carla Pires’ new album arrives to us, packed with the certainty that her voice has followed the best sailing charts, the result could never be less than breathtaking. This is a work to listen to and love, amid the passion of travel, poetry and music from various ports!”
João Carlos Calixto (RTP-Portuguese TV) 07/07/2020
§ “Her voice has everything you need for first-class fado singing: emotional depth and variation with precise intonation.” Willi Klopottek,WOXX Magazine- Luxembourg /Jun 2020
§ “What a lovely voice and excellent musicians on her side!”
Andreas Kisters (Radio Bremen) 02/06/2020
§ “After touring many stages and countries and several albums released, fado singer Carla Pires has her most mature work on the most recent album, Cartografado. A map of trips made and those still to be done “. Nuno Pacheco, Ipsilon (Jornal Público_PT) 17/04//2020
§ “Carla Pires sings as if she were out of the body. She chisels every word and puts pressure on almost every syllable, doing everything with such fluency and elegance. A large and enthusiastic audience in the Pildammsteatern enjoyed, overwhelmed by her own feelings.”
Sommarscen Malmö Festival (June 30, 2019) Newsbeezer.com
§ “Also known as a TV actress, she’s a fine, clear-voiced singer, poised, elegant, not theatrically over-emoting just expressive in telling the song.” Andrew Cronshaw, FOLKROOTS #408, Jun17
§ “One of fado ’s foremost fadistas”
(…) “The singer clearly knows how to put a story across and there’s no doubting her ability to connect with the listener”. Michael Macaroon, SONGLINES Magazine #123 Dec.2016
§ “Carla Pires at the Théâtre des Abbesses: one moment of springtime in November!
Jean-Luc Gonneau, LUSO JOURNAL (30/11/2016)
§ “Yesterday evening, the legendary Galileo Galilei hall in Madrid received the fadista Carla Pires. Pires remains almost two hours on stage. We would stay and live forever in those 120 minutes of endless beauty. ” Pedro Pollán, Sabor a Ócio, 27/10/2016
§ Carla Pires at Graz Opera (March-April 2015) “The most pleasing, the most acclaimed contribution of the evening comes with “Fado”, a choreography by Vasco Wellencamp, whose emotional center of this great work is not so much the dancers but the great singer Carla Pires.”
Kronen Zeitung (16/03/2015)
§ “A voice that hits you in the heart, with an emotion that hits you without understanding the Portuguese language.” Maarten van Heuven (www.vpro.nl/vrije-geluiden 29/06/2016)
§ Carla Pires in Buenos Aires (06/11/2014)
Hope that will be repeated the meeting between the Argentine public and this great artist named Carla Pires. Andrea Lopes, FADO ARGENTINO (Blogspot)
§ “Next to a fado singer like Carla Pires, whose voice reaches right down into your bones, it’s all too easy to end up saying too much.” Sander Hiskemuller, TROUW (March 2014)
§ “Carla Pires: a moment of grace” (Festival Parfums de Musique, Paris 10/06/2012) “As soon as the guitars and the voice of Carla Pires take possession of the scene, our souls are also possessed”. Jean-Luc Gonneau, LUSO JOURNAL
§ “One of the best concerts of the Festival! Carla Pires thrills the crowds!”
(@Festival Côté Cour, Aix-en-Provence 24/07/2011) | LA MARSEILLAISE (30/07/2011)