Alceu Valença

Alceu Valença (born July 1, 1946 in São Bento do Una, Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil) is a Brazilian composer, writer, performer, actor, and poet. Alceu Valenca was born in countryside Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil. He is considered the most successful artist in achieving an aesthetic balance between traditional northeastern Brazilian music and a broad range of electronic sounds and effects from pop music. One can find traces of maracatu, coco and "repentes de viola" (improvising fast-paced Brazilian folk music) in most of his songs. Alceu was able to utilize the electric guitar the electric bass, and lately even a synthesizer was added to his broad scope of musical instruments. Because of that, Alceu was able to recreate Northeastern traditional music, like baião, coco, toada, maracatu, frevo, caboclinhos, embolada and repentes: all sung with a sometimes rock sometimes alternative sounding music background. His music and his themes are intangible, universal and unlimited. However, his aesthetic basis is genuinely Brazilian Northeastern music. Alceu Valença was born in São Bento do Una, Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil. When he was young, he used to listen songs by Dalva de Oliveira, Orlando Silva, Sílvio Caldas etc. When he was 5 years old, he participated of a music contest, singing a song by Capiba. Some years later, his mother get sick and his family moved to Recife to live in his aunt's house. In this period, Valença get interested in some musical instruments, such as acoustic guitar and viola. However, he only won his own guitar when he was 15. In 1970, Valença got his graduation degree on Laws. However, he only followed a career in which for a matter of months. In fact, in the early 1970s, the reason he had no time for a law career was that he had already launched into a musical direction. He started his musical career in 1968, with the group Underground Tamarineira Village, later known as Ave Sangria. He also played with Zé Ramalho and Elba Ramalho during this period. In 1972, he joined Geraldo Azevedo. Together, they participated of many festivals and, in that same years, recorded their first album: Alceu Valença & Geraldo Azevedo, also known as Quadrafônico. Along his career, Valença recorded more than 20 albums and travelled around many countries, such as Portugal, France and United States. Actually, he is considered one of the greatest exponents of the music of Pernambuco.