Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 04/06/2026 17:45:00

Set in a converted nineteenth-century townhouse on Rua de Sao Mamede in the historic Castelo district of central Lisbon, the Associacao do Fado Casto is one of the principal modern centres of the wider Portuguese fado musical tradition. The association was founded in around 2017 by the Portuguese fado singer and educator Carlos do Carmo as a deliberate not-for-profit alternative to the increasingly commercialised tourist-focused fado venues of the surrounding central Lisbon historic districts. The principal aim of the association is the preservation and continued performance of the more authentic and traditional forms of the Portuguese fado tradition. The various weekly programmes include traditional fado vadio sessions where amateur and professional singers participate together in an informal traditional fado evening, formal recitals by established professional fado performers from across the wider Portuguese musical community and supplementary educational workshops covering the principal techniques and traditional repertoire of the wider fado vocal tradition. The principal performance space on the ground floor of the building consists of a small intimate venue with seating capacity for approximately sixty audience members in the standard small fado house arrangement. The audience seating consists of the traditional small wooden tables in close arrangement to the central performance area, providing the standard intimate physical relationship between the performers and the audience that has been a continuing characteristic of the wider Portuguese fado venue tradition continuously since the nineteenth century. The principal weekly programme typically includes around four or five separate fado sessions across the seven days of the week. The traditional Wednesday evening fado vadio sessions are the principal continuing showcase of the wider amateur fado tradition, with around fifteen to twenty different amateur singers contributing individual songs across the four-hour evening programme. The weekend Friday and Saturday evening recitals provide the principal regular performance opportunities for the various established professional fado performers from across the wider Lisbon and Coimbra fado communities. The supplementary educational programme runs throughout the year and includes regular weekly singing workshops for both adult and junior students, occasional masterclasses by the various distinguished visiting performers from the wider Portuguese fado community, and a substantial archive of historical fado recordings, sheet music and the various supplementary research materials covering the wider history and continuing development of the Portuguese fado tradition.