The Madrid Fado Festival will be holding its sixteenth edition on 4 and 5 June, offering a unique opportunity to enjoy some of today’s leading exponents of the genre. This year, Sara Correia, Beatriz Felício and António Zambujo will be representing Portuguese music. Furthermore, attendees will discover the genre in depth thanks to a conference and a screening that will take place during the festival, which will be held at the Teatro Real and the Spanish Filmoteca-Cine Doré.
If there is a musical genre that forms part of the Portuguese identity, it is fado. Its soul is in the poor neighbourhoods, the streets and ports, in the old houses and the stories told inside them. Songs that speak of melancholy, saudade, nostalgia and the confrontation with fate, sung accompanied by the guitar and the viola.
The theme of the 2026 edition: fado and the neighbourhoods emerges from this mythology. Sixteen years after its first edition in Madrid, the festival is back at the Teatro Real with three of the most prominent voices on the today’s fado scene: Sara Correia, Beatriz Felício and António Zambujo.
António Zambujo is one of the leading figures in contemporary Portuguese music. His career moves between fado, Alentejo folk music and Brazilian music, whereby he is known for his innovative approach and artistic freedom. In 2026, he will launch a new creative phase with Oração ao Tempo, his eleventh studio album which will be released in spring.
Beatriz Felício is one of the rising stars on the music scene in Portugal. At the age of 25, she has already performed at major events and worked with renowned artists. In 2024, she released her debut album of the same name, released by the Fado Museum, which she will be presenting in this edition.
The concerts will be rounded off with a performance by Sara Correia, an artist who has performed on stages worldwide and released three albums that have been acclaimed by the public and critics alike. The artist was nominated for a Latin Grammy Award and has brought together some of today’s best lyricists and composers, as well as establishing fado as her artistic home. On this occasion, she will present Fado con Tempestade, her latest album.
In addition to the concerts, the Spanish Film Library – Cine Doré will host The Street and Fado conference, which explores how intrinsic fado is to daily life in all of Lisbon’s ports and streets, in a symbiotic relationship in which fado inspires and is influenced by each inhabitant in the city. Fado is a consequence of life; the cities, ports and the inhabitants’ lives turn fado into a chronicle of the people. It is a newspaper of the soul, accessible to all but speaking its own language in every neighbourhood and fado house.
The Filmoteca will also screen the documentary film Do Bairro, which moves to the heart of Lisbon’s historic centre, where the neighbourhood's delinquents gather to tell their stories. With a blend of cultural roots, traditional music and a philosophy of cause and effect, Do Bairro invites the deepest layers of these communities to be discovered.
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