Marisa Monte

Marisa Monte
Marisa Monte live in 2012.
Background information
Birth name	Marisa de Azevedo Monte
Born	(1967-07-01) July 1, 1967 (age 49) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Genres	Música popular brasileira
Instruments	Singing, Guitar, Cavaquinho, Ukulele
Associated acts	Tribalistas

Marisa de Azevedo Monte (born July 1, 1967 in Rio de Janeiro) is a Brazilian singer, composer, instrumentalist, and producer of Brazilian popular music and samba. As of 2011, she has sold 10 million albums worldwide and has won numerous national and international awards, including four Latin Grammys, seven Brazilian MTV Video Music Awards, nine Multishow de Música Brasileira awards, 5 APCAs, and six Prêmio TIM de Música. Marisa is considered by Rolling Stone Brasil to be the second greatest singer, behind only Elis Regina. She also has two albums (MM e Verde, Anil, Amarelo, Cor-de-Rosa e Carvão) on the list of the 100 best albums of Brazilian music.

Marisa Monte was born in Rio de Janeiro, daughter of the engineer Carlos Saboia Monte and Sylvia Marques de Azevedo Monte. On her father's side, she is descended from the Saboias, one of the oldest Italian families in Brazil. She studied singing, piano, and drums as a child, and began studying opera singing at 14. In 1982, she participated in a production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show directed by Michael Falabella, with students from the Colegio Andrews.

At nineteen, she moved to Rome, Italy, where she studied bel canto for 10 months. After that, she began appearing in bars and nightclubs singing Brazilian music, accompanied by friends. One of these shows was attended by the producer Nelson Motta, who directed her first show in Rio de Janeiro upon her return. The Veludo Azul show had seasons in Rio and São Paulo, and caught the attention of record companies.

Monte had already enjoyed much popular and critical success before launching her first album. At the time, she was invited to record her first special by the television program TV Manchete, which was called MM, and released as on LP and VHS. Her first big hit appeared on this album, Bem Que Se Quis (the Nelson Motta version for the Italian composer Pino Daniele's E Po' Che Fa). Her hit was played exhaustively on Brazilian radio stations, and was included on the soundtrack of Lauro César Muniz's soap opera O Salvador de Pátria on the Globo network (1989). The soundtrack sold 500 thousand copies, a big success for an emerging artist in Brazil. The album is #62 on the list of 100 greatest Brazilian music albums.