Mário Pacheco’s (Portuguese fado guitarist & composer) assured guitar playing and captivating musical composition have not come about by chance. They are the result of dedication, hard work and a special love of music and fado in particular, rooted in a family tradition. The son of guitarist António Pacheco who accompanied some of the most celebrated fadistas, Mário Pacheco began at an early age to master the mysteries of making the guitar sing and the melodic patterns of fado composition. This early apprenticeship was deepened and extended in his study of solfeggio and classical guitar at the Lisbon Academy of Music. However, it is the cittern-like guitarra portuguesa that beguiles him, the instrument that he says “most expressively defines fado”. He industriously studied the great masters: Armandinho, Artur Paredes, Carlos Paredes , Pedro Caldeira Cabral and Fontes Rocha. The foundations were thus laid for him to create his own style as an accompanist to such great singers as Amália Rodrigues, Alfredo Marceneiro, Hermínia Silva, Tristão da Silva, Max, Fernando Maurício and Maria da Fé, all of whom his father had also accompanied. It was inevitable that his musical upbringing and comprehensive grasp of the forms and harmonies of fado would also feed his desire to compose. Carlos Zel, Paulo Bragança, Paulo de Carvalho, Joana Amendoeira and Mísia perform his fados and most recently Rodrigo Costa Félix, Ana Sofia Varela, Camané and Mariza. He runs a fado club in the Alfama district of Lisbon and has travelled the world playing many of his finest compositions. He has recorded several CDs and some of his international concerts have included the World Festival of Historic Cities in Kyoto (Japan), at the Córdova Guitar Festival in Spain, at the Mitte Europa Festival in Munich (Germany), with Amália Rodrigues and Roberto Murolo in Naples (Italy) and at the Festival of Literature in Lillehammer in Norway.