Fado * Património Imaterial da Humanidade * Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
por Carlos Santos Neves, RTP - 27 novembro '11
publicado 12:39 27 novembro '11 
O presidente da Comissão Científica da candidatura, Rui Vieira Nery, falou de uma "reconciliação nacional" com o fado Paulo Cordeiro, Lusa
O fado é a partir de agora Património Imaterial da Humanidade. A candidatura do género musical português foi aprovada este domingo durante o VI Comité Intergovernamental da Organização das Nações Unidas para a Educação, Ciência e Cultura. A UNESCO distingue o fado enquanto tradição e expressão da identidade da cultura do país. Os peritos da Organização avaliaram o processo de candidatura português como exemplar. Em Lisboa, o Presidente da República viu na decisão “um motivo de orgulho para todos os portugueses”.
(RTP 2008)
Fado, urban popular song of Portugal - Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
UNESCO decided Sunday that the most traditional Portuguese music genre, the fado, will beincluded in the World Intangible Heritage list.
"Fado is a performance genre incorporating music and poetry widely practised by various communities in Lisbon. It represents a Portuguese multicultural synthesis of Afro-Brazilian sung dances, local traditional genres of song and dance, musical traditions from rural areas of the country brought by successive waves of internal immigration, and the cosmopolitan urban song patterns of the early nineteenth century. Fado songs are usually performed by a solo singer, male or female, traditionally accompanied by a wire-strung acoustic guitar and the Portuguese guitarra – a pear-shaped lute with twelve wire strings, unique to Portugal, which also has an extensive solo repertoire. The past few decades have witnessed this instrumental accompaniment expanded to two Portuguese guitars, a guitar and a bass guitar. Fado is performed professionally on the concert circuit and in small ‘Fado houses’, and by amateurs in numerous grass-root associations located throughout older neighbourhoods of Lisbon. Informal tuition by older, respected exponents takes place in traditional performance spaces and often over successive generations within the same families. The dissemination of Fado through emigration and the world music circuit has reinforced its image as a symbol of Portuguese identity, leading to a process of cross-cultural exchange involving other musical traditions."
