Who is Filipa :: HÁ DIAS ASSIM

Who is Filipa

EARLY LIFE AND CAREER DEBUT

For about fifteen years, Filipa was concealed in the north of Portugal, in a small village called Montezelo, close to Melres, a parish of Gondomar, in the district of Porto. This is where she was brought up to be the girl she now is: shy, humble, friendly, easy-going and, most of all, a common little girl with a big dream to come true.

Filipa, like every other girl, went to school at 6 and was always an average student. At 12, she enrolled on a course in Western Concert Flute in the Porto Music Conservatory and it was during this time that she discovered a unique instrument which she would rather play with the rest of her life: her voice. This realization soon led to her quitting the course, in pursuit of a career as a singer.

Still, this was a very intimate dream of hers, as she would not sing in public even remotely. At home, no one knew about her incredible talent apart from her mother, Susana Azevedo, with whom she always had a close relationship, just like “best friends”.

The truth is that Filipa was not far from having her way paved to stardom. In 2007, not long after she had turned 16, she signed up for “Família Superstar” (the Portuguese version of “The Superstar Family Show”). That decision turned out to be the start of her career.

FAMÍLIA SUPERSTAR

The moment she started singing at her audition became a huge turning point in her life. The judges, Portuguese music experts, could not hold their feelings at her audition when they got to hear her voice. The first reaction was from Sérgio Rosado, singer of the successful duet Anjos: “Honestly, I haven’t heard a voice like yours for a long long time ago… Congratulations!” He was all in tears. “I really had to close my eyes at one point because I felt that I was actually listening to Beyoncé… Congratulations!” Clara de Sousa, an acclaimed journalist, said “You are like a dam that really needs to open up its floodgates… that voice… you can really deliver a knockout performance…” Nélson Rosado, the other singer of the duet “Anjos”, was also marvelled at Filipa’s singing: “Well, when I started to hear you singing, I almost couldn’t believe in what I was hearing… It would be a crime not to have you in this show.”

Her audition was the most popular of them all. There were lots of videos of her on YouTube, lots of comments, compliments, praises… Everywhere, it seemed like the country had become a Filipa Azevedo addict.

From then on, she will only face a series of successes, after every performance at the show. From Beyoncé’s Listen to A Moment Like This by Kelly Clarkson, in the version of Leona Lewis, passing by Evanescence’s My Immortal, Shirley Bassey’s Goldfinger, Tina Turner’s Goldeneye, Madonna’s Like a Prayer, Whitney Houston’s When You Believe, Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, also in the version of Leona Lewis and, at last, Mariah Carey’s Endless Love. Each and every performance was praised with a wide range of compliments, according to the challenges of each song. The judges stated she always managed to pull it off and deliver amazing renditions of the songs.

In the final of the show, Clara de Sousa expressed how she felt that Filipa “is worth 3 or 4 singers.” Sérgio Rosado found Filipa “absolutely perfect”, while his brother Nélson said she was a “raw talent (…) a very good singer (…) a brilliant performer.” Tózé Brito, a music mogul and the chief judge of the show, stated she was “like an angel singing. Tonight you were also an earthquake. You were incredible… I already knew your amazing low notes, but tonight you hit such high notes that very few professional singers in Portugal would be able to do as you did.” Sérgio ended up saying she was “undoubtedly, the best singer in the show. She was the voice of this show. If the Portuguese, at home, vote well, they will vote for Filipa.” He, then added up that he would be very honoured to be the producer of her first CD.

That night of the 31st December to the 1st January saw her victory on the show.

STARDOM AND MOVE TO LONDON

For a whole year, she gave interviews, performed live in a lot of different shows on TV and started recording her first album. She got to record a song featuring one of her ex-rivals on Familia Superstar, Catarina Pereira. The song's title is Carrossel de Papel (Paper Carousel) and was included on the CD O melhor do mundo (The best of the world), whose revenues went interily to different children charity associations.

Meanwhile, she also moved to London with her closest family, where she is still living, in order to improve her vocal technique and continue her artistic studies. She enrolled a course of Music Technology and Musical Production, on the London Music School, as one of her wishes is to be a music producer, apart from a singer. She wants to be able to produce her own albums and those of other artists, too.

FILIPA AZEVEDO

In 2009, her album entitled Filipa Azevedo premieres, but it does not chart as expected. The production of the CD is poor and it showed lack of motivation from the producers. The work was considered to be very amateurish, even though her vocals and skills as a singer remained immaculate and some of the songs were of very good quality. She is advised to drop her record label and so she does, being at once snatched by the agency Cherry Entertainment, the record label of other Portuguese artists such as Mia Rose. Soon after this, she starts giving concerts throughout the country and performing live on TV, again.

FESTIVAL DA CANÇÃO AND EUROVISION SONG CONTEST

In the beginning of 2010, she is invited by SIC, a Portuguese TV channel, to be the main singer on the memorial for the victims of the devastating earthquake in Haiti. The absolutely fabulous live renditions of We are the world (Band Aid), The Earth Song (Michael Jackson) and Imagine (John Lennon) remind everyone of how good she is and that she is there to stay.

Actually, in the mean time, she had already been asked by Augusto Madureira to sing his song at this year’s Festival da Canção, so that they could reach the stage of Eurovision. As expected, due to Augusto’s skills as a composer and writer and Filipa’s already proved talent, the song was chosen to be one of the 30 acts of the quarter-finals, by an experienced jury. It scored brilliantly, being the winner of an on-line poll and, therefore, managing to get through to the semi-finals, along with other 23 acts. A total of 24 songs were divided into two semi-finals and luck dictated that she would be the fourth act of the first semi-final. She did it again and won the televote, getting a place in the final.

The final was very strong, as a good amount of well-known singers were also performing and fighting for the trophy, such as Catarina Pereira and Vanessa. This time, she performed 9th and despite not being the public top favourite (she was their 4th choice), she won the jury vote, getting altogether an amount of 19 points, against the 18 points of the runner-up Catarina Pereira, the public’s top favourite.

Yet again, Filipa won another competition and, with it, the chance to represent Portugal at Eurovision this same year, with her ballad "Há Dias Assim", which already has an English version entitled “It’s one of those days”.