José Medeiros

José Medeiros is a musician, a composer, an actor and a director. His works are pure cinematic references of Azorean and Portuguese public television and still remain in everyone's memory. Shows like "Mau Tempo no Canal" (Bad Weather in the Canal", "Xailes Negros" (Black Shawls), "O Barco e o Sonho" (The Boat and the Dream) or "Gente Feliz com Lágrimas" (Happy People with Tears). Besides directing these masterpieces, he was also responsible for each and every song in the soundtracks. In some cases he put Azorean female singers like Minela and Susana Coelho in the spotlight. He started playing aboard the ship "Funchal" in a time when it stopped linking the Azores and Madeira Islands and began doing cruise trips. Some time later, after his military service in Angola - where he took part in the Portuguese Colonial War, which would traumatize him and leave a permanent and easily identifiable mark in all of his work - he started working for RTP, the mainland-Portuguese public television station, where he eventually got to Assistant Director. When RTP finally got to the Azores in 1976, he returned to his homeland. He then started his career as director, which put him in the spotlight and showed to the world what was being made in the Azores with the very scarce resources that existed at the time. As a musician, his first album was "Rimando Contra a Maré" (Rhyming Against the Tide), a play on words with "Remando Contra a Maré" (Rowing Against the Tide), in 1983. In 1986, he released "Ala-Bote!" ("Ala-Bote" is an exclamation the whalers used when they were leaving to hunt whales). The soundtrack for "Xailes Negros" (Black Shawls) was also out in 1986, as well as the one for "O Barco e o Sonho" (The Boat and the Dream). After a 9-year interruption in songwriting and directing, he came back in 1995 with "O Feiticeiro do Vento" (The Wizard of the Wind), which was also the soundtrack for a TV-show with the same title. 3 years later, one more soundtrack, this time for "7 Cidades, A Lenda do Arcebispo" (7 Cities, the Legend of the Archbishop). 1999 was the year when José Medeiros finally started getting the recognition he already deserved when he released his first full-length album "Cinefilias e Outras Incertezas" (Love of the Movies and Other Uncertainties), as this album was nominated for a José Afonso award, one of the most important music awards in Portugal. This award would eventually be his in 2004, when he released his second LP, "Torna-Viagem" (Return Trip - free translation). On the 30th December 2010 his latest album, "Fados, Fantasmas e Folias" (Fados, Ghosts and Revelries), was released.