Lua Adversa

On digital platforms and streaming

Cristina Clara

Lua Adversa

On digital platforms and streaming

Bio

Cristina Clara transforms the stage into a space of closeness, freedom, and beauty. With a versatile voice and a strong presence, she moves naturally between intimacy and expansiveness. Each concert is a shared experience with the audience, where tradition and contemporaneity engage in open dialogue.

Originally from Minho - in the North of Portugal - and based in Lisbon since 2005, she is a singer and songwriter whose journey is rooted in the oral music tradition, which she embraces as a living form of connection between cultures, territories, and people. A registered nurse by training, she studied singing and theatre, but it was an invitation from renowned fado singer Marco Rodrigues to perform at the historic Café Luso that marked the true beginning of her musical career.

Her debut album - Lua Adversa -, released in 2021, was featured as Disco Antena 1, supported by the Fado Museum and distributed by Sony Music. Co-produced by Cristina Clara, Pedro Loch, and Edu Miranda, it blends original and traditional repertoire and features renowned musicians with backgrounds in jazz and folk traditions.

Her close connection to Cape Verdean and Brazilian cultures has been central to shaping her artistic voice, inspiring her to explore poetic and harmonic affinities between genres such as Fado, Morna, and Samba-canção.

Deeply passionate about traditional practices and aware of the vital role of women in their transmission, she incorporates hand percussion instruments like the adufe and tracanholas into her performances—elements linked to ancestral feminine universe. In this context, her live collaborations with Cape Verdean batukaderas groups such as Freirianas and Delta Ramantxadas on the island of Santiago began in 2018.

On stage, Cristina Clara weaves an engaging and heartfelt narrative. With humor, sensitivity, and a natural sense of connection, she links songs and stories in a way that blurs the line between storytelling and song.

Her concert was one of the highlights of WOMEX in Manchester in October 2024. With a rousing performance, Cristina Clara convinced the delegates of the worldwide music meeting. (...) In Cristina Clara's work, many things come together: rhythms and melodies from other countries of Lusophonia, the wide Portuguese-speaking world. — Festival Glatt & Verkehrt (Austria, 2025)

Cristina Clara has performed at festivals and venues such as NOS Alive, Santa Casa Alfama, Festival MED, Centro Cultural de Belém, Teatro da Trindade, Festival Internacional dos Açores, Atlantic Music Expo (Cape Verde), and Casa de Portugal (São Paulo), as well as in countries including Belgium, Tunisia, Austria, Germany, and Luxembourg. In 2024, she was a finalist at Festival da Canção (Portugal’s Eurovision selection) with Primavera — lyrics by her, music by Cape Verdean composer Jon Luz — and was selected for an official showcase at WOMEX 2024, which led to a nomination for the Upbeat New Talent Award 2025.

Alongside her artistic work, she also leads workshops focused on traditional Portuguese song and hand percussion instruments such as the adufe, tracanholas, and kass kass, promoting collective creation and the active appreciation of intangible cultural heritage.

Lua Adversa

Lua Adversa [Contrary Moon], an appropriate name for an album that mirrors the various phases-faces of Cristina Clara and her creative process! Handpicked words, songs that tell stories, and a brilliant team of musicians who, more than accompanying her, were true agents in her path, chosen for their role in the plot.