Alceu Valença

Alceu Valença (Brazilian Portuguese: [awˈsew vaˈlẽsɐ]; born July 1, 1946) is a Brazilian singer, musician, and songwriter. Alceu Valenca was born in the countryside of 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. In most of his songs, one can find traces of maracatu, coco and "repentes de viola" (improvising fast-paced Brazilian folk music). Valença could utilize the electric guitar, the electric bass, and lately even a synthesizer was added to his broad scope of musical instruments. Because of that, Valença 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.