The Hoje project began in 2009 as an idea from Nuno Gonçalves from The Gift: to bring Amália Rodrigues’ fados to the universe of contemporary pop.
After taking as a starting point a musical arrangement of the classic “Gaivota”, Gonçalves recruited his colleague from The Gift, Sónia Tavares, Fernando Ribeiro from Moonspell and Paulo Praça (ex-Plaza, Turbo Junkie) to sing the new versions.
“Formiga Bossa Nova”, “Abandono”, “Foi Deus”, “Grito”, “Nome de Rua” and the French theme “L’Importance C’est La Rose” were some of the songs chosen to go through the keyboard magnifying glass , strings and drums by Nuno Gonçalves and the voices less given to fado wanderings by Tavares, Ribeiro and Praça.
After a recording process that took Gonçalves to London with the London Session Orchestra, the album, “Amália Hoje”, hit stores in April 2009, quickly becoming a serious success story.
The album reached first place on the sales chart in the month of its release, a count it maintained for more than 20 weeks, becoming the best-selling album of that year in Portugal. With such good commercial results, Hoje repeated the success formula on stage.
After selling out the Coliseums in Porto and Lisbon in October 2009, a national tour followed that lasted until 2010, with the project coming to an end shortly thereafter.
