Leila
Pinheiro was born in Belém, in the northern Brazilian state of Pará. She
started playing the piano and ten years later dropped out of medical school to
devote herself full-time to her musical career. In 1981 Pinheiro moved to Rio
de Janeiro where she has recorded and toured between trips to Japan (to promote
the album ‘OLHO NU’ to win Best
Vocal Performance representing Brazil at the Yamaha World Popular Song Festival,
1987), Europe (where Leila toured in 1993 for the first time through Belgium,
Netherlands, France and Spain), and the United States (invited in 1996 to New
York to take part in a Carnegie Hall show entitled “All Jobim” and again in 2000 as a guest musicians in “Brazilian
Things” at the Lincoln Center Out Of Doors in New York with Bebel Gilberto
before a show later that year with singers Ivan Lins and Ed Motta that went
coast to coast.
Leila
Pinheiro has released music on all the major Brazilian imprints including
Polygram, EMI, Universal and Biscoito Fino and now adds the most influential
Brazilian label outside of Brazil – Far Out Recordings – to release her latest
project ‘Ceu e Mar’ (‘Sky & Sea’) with long-time collaborator and friend
Nelson Faria, which re-discovers classic Brazilian cuts such as Doce Presença
(Ivan Lins/Vitor Martins), Sucedeu Assim (Antonio Carlos Jobim/Marino Pinto)
and That old devil called love (Doris Fisher/Allan Roberts).
